May brings flowers and sunshine – as well as a lot of news. This first full week of May is event filled.

Monday began the week with the news of leaders held accountable even if they were not entirely at fault. Target’s massive data breach has now cost the company’s CEO his job. Wow, a chief executive held accountable! What a concept! Lo, and behold, the wrong Obama loses his job:This looks like a sad day for the Obama family. Sports Illustrated is reporting that Oregon State has fired basketball coach Craig Robinson, the brother-in-law of first lady Michelle Obama. It’s the wrong Obama!

First of all today Boner, er, Boehner names Trey Gowdy chairman of Benghazi select committee . Gowdy is not a fool or incompetent like Darryl Issa. Gowdy knows how to examine a witness and how to stay focused on what matters. Which leads to the second reason why the threats from Obama and henchmen don’t frighten anyone interested in finding out what happened on September 11 in Benghazi.

Second, imagine a committee and hearings populated only with Republicans. Without Obama shills to distract and shout RACISM! and fog up the place with lies, witnesses in public hearings would be grilled like bacon in a blast furnace. More importantly imagine only Republicans present at the behind the scenes depositions of witnesses. If Obama henchmen are not present at those private depositions they won’t know what fresh Hell could break loose. So, we don’t take the threats seriously and if the threats materialize there will be Hell to pay as facts are extracted from witnesses.

CBS News President David Rhodes described what the “government” believed about the Benghazi attack the day after it happened, saying it was not just a “mob reaction” to a film. [snip]

At this point, Rhodes interjected a parenthetical note about the “pretty alarming” situation saying, “Our government thinks that, you know, there’s a really good chance this was not just a spontaneous mob reaction to what some thought was an offensive film but actually a coordinated effort timed to the 9/11 anniversary.”

Later this week there will be a vote to establish the select committee. We will also find out sometime this week who will be on that committee and whether or not the Obama protection squads will cut their noses to spite their faces.

Obama? This week Obama if trolling for dollars once again. Repeatedly. On Wednesday it’s California that will welcome the big fleet of climate changing planes. Los Angeles on Wednesday. Four fundraisers on Thursday in LA, San Diego, and San Jose. Climate change Air Force 1 style. Tax payers will get the bill as fig leaf events are gilded on to make it all legal.

On Tuesday, there will be primaries. Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina are the featured attractions. In Ohio John Boner has a primary challenger which has cleverly mashed “boner” jokes with erectile dysfunction commercials. Boner will have a hard time with this ad:

Boner will likely win his primary even as his challenger has lost his job at a Christian college due to the contents of the ad.

Also on Tuesday we will learn if North Carolina Senator Kay Hagen will succeed with her Clair McCaskill style tactic of choosing her opponent. Hagen’s top opponent is Thom Tillis but unless Tillis gets 40% of the vote there will be a run-off and Hagen will have that much more time to get money and divide the opposition. To that end Kay Hagen has been lying without restraint:

As previously noted, Sen. Kay Hagan (D., N.C.) has attacked her presumptive GOP opponent, Thom Tillis, as a hypocrite for wanting to repeal Obamacare despite having once described it as a “great idea.”

It’s completely dishonest. Tillis did say that, but here’s the full context: ““The majority of the stuff that is in Obamacare is bad, because it’s not fiscally sustainable. It’s a great idea that can’t be paid for.”

Now, Hagan’s campaign is repeating the attack in fliers mailed to Republican voters ahead of the GOP primary on Tuesday. It’s a pretty blatant effort to undermine Tillis’s standing among conservatives; he currently leads the GOP field with 40 percent of the vote, according to the Public Policy Polling, which is precisely the amount he needs to avoid a runoff.

That’s Monday and Tuesday in the big news category. While we lament the poor Californians who will suffer later on in the week we will keep our eyes on events scheduled for Wednesday:

Contempt Vote Coming Down on Lerner

The House of Representatives will vote this week on whether to hold former head of tax exempt groups at the IRS Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. Back in April, the House Oversight Committee voted to hold Lerner in Contempt after she plead the Fifth for a second time in March. Many lawmakers argue Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights the first time she testified the first time last year due to making an opening statement before claiming she wished to remain silent.

Since pleading the Fifth for a second time, emails have surfaced showing Lerner was in contact with the Department of Justice about the possible criminal prosecution of conservative tea party groups her special interest friends wanted “shut down.”

Last week, Lerner’s attorney said it would be “un-American” to hold her contempt and asked for a special opportunity to defend and make her case in front of Congress before the contempt vote this week. That request was denied.

After the vote, the matter will then most likely move to court, where a judge will determine whether Lerner had a right to invoke her Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer House GOP lawmakers’ questions about her role in the controversy.

Indeed that is what Politico wishes would happen. What should happen – we wrote about. Congress should prepare for a congressional trial against Lois Lerner because the Department of Justice will do nothing to prosecute the contempt citation which is coming and so richly deserved. Put Lois Lerner in the docket and clone Trey Gowdy for the prosecution.

If the president wants to witness a refutation of his assertion that the survival of the Affordable Care Act is assured, come Thursday he should stroll the 13 blocks from his office to the nation’s second-most important court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. There he can hear an argument involving yet another constitutional provision that evidently has escaped his notice. It is the origination clause, which says: “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.” [snip]

What will be argued on Thursday is that what was voted on — the ACA — was indisputably a revenue measure and unquestionably did not originate in the House, which later passed the ACA on another party-line vote. [snip]

In June 2012, a Supreme Court majority accepted a, shall we say, creative reading of the ACA by Chief Justice John Roberts. The court held that the penalty, which the ACA repeatedly calls a penalty, is really just a tax on the activity — actually, the nonactivity — of not purchasing insurance. The individual mandate is not, the court held, a command but merely the definition of a condition that can be taxed. The tax is mild enough to be semi-voluntary; individuals are free to choose whether or not to commit the inactivity that triggers the tax.

The “exaction” — Roberts’s word — “looks,” he laconically said, “like a tax in many respects.” It is collected by the IRS, and the proceeds go to the Treasury for the general operations of the federal government, not to fund a particular program. This surely makes the ACA a revenue measure.

Did it, however, originate in the House? Of course not. [snip]

Two years ago, the Supreme Court saved the ACA by declaring its penalty to be a tax. It thereby doomed the ACA as an unconstitutional violation of the origination clause.

It will be fun to watch the legal gymnasts support ObamaCare now that it is a tax but if it is a tax then it could not be a tax which originated in the Senate so it is a non-tax tax that will tax the legal system’s alleged logic. The lawsuit is HERE.

So, in one week, we get Benghazi, the IRS, ObamaCare. Festering lilies of May.

Let’s not forget the poll released on Monday which is the bill to be paid for Benghazi, the IRS scandal, and the ObamaCare scam:

This Just Might Be The Worst Poll Yet For Democrats

The Republican Party is at its strongest point in two decades heading into midterm elections, according to a new Pew Research-USA Today poll, the latest daunting sign for Democrats ahead of campaign season.

The GOP is at an even stronger point than in previous “wave” elections in 1994 and 2010 and looks poised to make major gains — and possibly take control of the U.S. Senate.

According to the poll, out Monday, Republicans have a 47-43 lead on the generic congressional ballot. That’s a 10-point swing from October, when Democrats, boosted by GOP blame for the federal government shutdown, held a 6-point lead in the Pew poll.

Barack Obama is killing off the party. Perhaps Harry Reid and Nancy Pelousy only care about their national power but we suspect that many other office holders are beginning to realize Obama is going to kill them all:

Control of five state Senates would swing to the GOP with a gain of no more than three seats, and the party is targeting four additional state legislative chambers, believing the political environment favors Republicans this year. …

“Republicans are at something of a high-water mark,” said Tim Storey, who tracks elections at the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. “However, there are still a number of states where Republicans could flip chambers and come out even stronger than they came in.”

Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Oregon, New Hampshire, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maine are all targets of opportunity for Republicans. In November we will know.

For now, this week in May is planting a lot of seeds that will flower in six months.

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192 thoughts on “A Week In May”

That lawsuit challenging Obamacare over the origination clause will be most interesting to watch. I suspect the DC Court of Appeals will find someway to rule against the lawsuit, but the resulting messy decision will leave a lot of room for an appeal to the Supreme Court. It will be even more fun to see Chief Justice Roberts twist himself into a pretzel over that one.

The new USA Today/Pew Research poll out this morning is terrible news for Democrats and shows a possible wave forming that Republican candidates may be able to ride to majorities in both houses of Congress on Election Day. [snip]

In addition, by a margin of more than two to one, Americans say they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country.

But dig deeper into the polling results and you’ll find a number Democrats should be even more worried about.

An astonishing 65 percent of respondents say they want the next president to pursue different policies than the ones pushed by President Obama.

That’s bad news for Hillary Clinton or any Democrat looking to run for president in 2016. It also underlines why it’s so rare that one party holds the White House for three consecutive terms.

Admin, you may become seriously sleep deprived just keeping up with the action in DC. This article contained a wealth of information about serious issues. I had not heard even a mention about the law suit related to Ocare. It’s a brilliant move, and as Tony said, strikes at Robert’s argument.

The Dems and their friends in media have got the talking points down pat about Benghazi being used as a political tool by Pubs. I heard it reported today that Gwen Ifil and Cokie Roberts had both criticized the Republican decision to appoint a committee to investigate Benghazi. I didn’t hear the remarks of these two Obama defenders, just a report about their comments.

I don’t doubt that the Pubs are politicizing the hell out of Benghazi, and especially, conservative media. With regard to the WH plan not to participate, whether or not the issue is being politicized is irrelevant. This is a legitimate course of action – a process provided within the law whereby such matters can be lawfully investigated. The WH doesn’t get to opt out of the investigatory process just because they (pretend to) believe there’s no valid reason for an investigation. I guess they can do so, but, as Admin said, it would be at their own peril.

The Pubs who are really politicizing Benghazi are easy to spot. They’re the ones trying desperately to make it about Hillary. The Conservative media are worse than the politicians about this, and they are so obvious and clumsy in their attempts to stretch a point to cover both Obama and Hillary. They’ll just throw her name in a sentence, where it logically doesn’t fit, just to find a way to blame her for Benghazi, and damage her politically. Worse, even as they are making false statements, erroneous accusations, and smart-ass remarks about Hillary in the context of Benghazi, they are expressing such outrage and profound sadness about the four people killed. I’m not trying to make light of the death of anyone, but these insincere hacks are not primarily concerned with justice for the victims. They are as unconcerned as they claim Hillary and Obama were .

I am hoping Trey gets to the bottom of Benghazi and Hillary’s mark is light. She needs to step up her pace separating herself, she is going at a snails pace. That is, and was, a problem for her in 2008. I think she over thought too much and wasn’t bold enough when she needed to be.

Wonderful post. Meaty enough to require an additional reading on my part. And it is just so refreshing to see the possibility of change from this awful skipping record of an administration.
[Sidenote. I think Craig Robinson is Michelle’s brother.]

Regarding Trey’s intentions, I’ve seen this at two right-leaning sources, one which I cited without content in HI44 previous post, and this which I noticed today:
snip Gowdy said certain unnamed witnesses have come forward and revealed the Obama administration sought to keep certain documents from Benghazi investigators, including the Accountability Review Board. “Does anyone really believe the ARB had access to all of the documents and all of the witnesses? I don’t know anyone who believes that. So, necessarily, that undercuts whatever findings they may have found,” he said. snip http://www.trunews.com/gowdy-systematic-effort-obama-admin-hide-benghazi-docs/

Who was it that said the old, white, blue-collar Dems were no longer needed? Who announced with a sneer hat the old guard had been replaced by the New Dimocratic Coalition ? As we know, that would be Dona- I must be a dumb ass – Brazille.

(snip)
The roughly one-eighth of voters who disapprove of Obama but nonetheless support Clinton for 2016 may be the most important group in the electorate. If Democratic candidates can collectively manage to corral Clinton’s share of the national electorate this fall, the party would likely keep control of the Senate and might take over the House of Representatives. The latter outcome is now seen (even by most Democrats) as a virtual impossibility. These Hillary Difference Voters, as we’ll call them, could find themselves the most courted contingent in this year’s contests.

Who are they? A comparison of those who back Clinton but disapprove of Obama with the group that is both pro-Clinton and pro-Obama suggests that the swing constituency is much more likely to be blue-collar and white — 71 percent of the mixed group are white, compared with only 57 percent of the pro-Obama, pro-Clinton group, and it is also somewhat more Latino. Whites without college degrees constitute 47 percent of the Hillary Difference Voters but only 30 percent of the pro-Clinton, pro-Obama group. In keeping with this, 62 percent of the Hillary Difference Voters have incomes of less than $50,000 annually.

Ideologically, the swing group includes significantly fewer self-described liberals. Among the Hillary Difference Voters, only 29 percent call themselves liberal; among those who both favor Clinton and approve of Obama, 43 percent are liberals. Nearly a third of the mixed group are white evangelical Protestants, compared with only 10 percent of those who react positively to both Democrats. Clinton also runs ahead of Obama’s approval rating among voters aged 30 to 49, among white Southerners, and among independents, including those who say they lean Republican.

Interestingly, while the swing group is 63 percent female — yes, Clinton does have particular appeal to women — this is not hugely different from the pro-Clinton, pro-Obama group, 59 percent of whom are female. Both numbers show how important women have become to the Democratic coalition.

As for the fall elections, the poll found that overall, 45 percent said they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their congressional district, while 44 percent said they would vote for the Republican. Not surprisingly, Democrats win the pro-Obama, pro-Clinton group overwhelmingly, 86 percent to 7 percent. But the Hillary Difference Voters split only 56 percent Democratic, with 26 percent choosing the Republican, and most of the rest still undecided. Again, this is the group in which Democratic support has room to grow. (Thanks to Peyton Craighill, The Washington Post’s polling manager, for pulling together these numbers.)

A lot of things stink about Benghazi. We do not doubt that there have been a great deal of lies and cover-ups all designed to get Obama re-elected. Obama supporters do not care but it matters to the country that American installations and America are respected and not targeted without anticipation and preparation to prevent the attacks or consequences for those that carry out attacks (see Iran embassy takeover and the consequences for that weakness on the part of the U.S.). A great deal of the problems from Ukraine to North Korea emanate from the fact that America has lost respect from world leaders. A great deal of Barack Obama’s failed presidency is due to the fact that foreign leaders (and domestic ones too) neither respect nor fear him.

Bottom line for Obama: he once again in 2012 ran a clever campaign based on fear-mongering and deceptions and he managed to stay in the Oval Office. But the price for that deceptive win is that his presidency has failed. That is a lesson for all leaders and especially for Hillary.

In coarse political terms it is best for Hillary to get the full truth about Benghazi out now. She should get the truth out well before the November elections (again, talking in coarse political terms). In coarse political terms let the fires of Benghazi burn out in November 2014 and the electoral consequences felt this year – not 2015 or 2016 or 2017.

Benghazi matters to us all. We recall discussions here at Big Pink with some attacking the maker of the “Innocence of Muslims” video as an abuser of free speech rights. We stood up for the First Amendment and the right of the video maker to his views.

We denounced any attempts by the government to intimidate a citizen for expressing his First Amendment rights let alone to diminish us all by violating the spirit and the letter of the First Amendment. To us it was irrelevant if the video offended – the First Amendment came, er, first.

We knew that the charge that it was the video that caused the attacks was a mendacious distortion but even if it was true – the First Amendment is the jewel on the Constitutional crown and we stand with the Constitution over temporary fashions in public opinion. The video maker was imprisoned on trumped up charges anyway. We are all damaged and diminished by this abuse of power.

The Benghazi cover-up is an offense to the First Amendment. The Benghazi cover-up is an offense to the values of America.

In coarse political terms Hillary understands that it will be to no avail to be elected president if her presidency is to fail like Barack Obama’s presidency has failed. Her strongest defense will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Her full cooperation, in coarse political terms, is her best shield. Throw Obama to the dogs to be eaten.

We still believe that Hillary will come out of this smelling like a rose. Her statements (when parsed, which we know weakens her defense) have been in legalese and mixed in with all the attacks associated with the phony “Arab Spring” (which we also knew to be phony right from the start even as most others applauded). Hillary did what Hillary was told to do by the president even if it was in her parsing fashion with caveats included. The key will be the 10:00 p.m. phone call from Barack Obama to her and the subsequent statement she was made to issue on the night of September 11.

Hillary Clinton now no longer serves the president. When she was Secretary of State she had a duty to the office. Not now. In coarse political terms Hillary should serve up the president in the same way young Barack was served a dog to be eaten.

Hillary Clinton is attending the Mental Health and Addiction Conference in Washington today, an event from the National Council for Behavioral Health. Answering a question about her “guilty pleasure,” the former First Lady and expectant grandmother reportedly had this rather unexpected response.

Asked for her guilty pleasure, Hillary Clinton paused, then said, “I’m just trying to think of the G-Rated ones.” She then said “chocolate.”

For those that do not visit DrudgeReport, the front page is all about Monica Lewinsky today. This is due to Monica Lewinsky’s article in Vanity Fair which is the first time she has discussed her affair with Bill Clinton. The DrugeReport headline is LEWINSKY: HILLARY BLAMED THE WOMAN!. Here are the relevant excerpts which belie that headline:

After 10 years of virtual silence (“So silent, in fact,” she writes, “that the buzz in some circles has been that the Clintons must have paid me off; why else would I have refrained from speaking out? I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth”), Lewinsky, 40, says it is time to stop “tiptoeing around my past—and other people’s futures. [snip]

Maintaining that her affair with Clinton was one between two consenting adults, Lewinsky writes that it was the public humiliation she suffered in the wake of the scandal that permanently altered the direction of her life: “Sure, my boss took advantage of me, but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position. . . . The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor’s minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power.”

After the scandal, writes Lewinsky, “I turned down offers that would have earned me more than $10 million, because they didn’t feel like the right thing to do.” After moving between London (where she got her master’s degree in social psychology at the London School of Economics), Los Angeles, New York, and Portland, Oregon, she interviewed for numerous jobs in communications and branding with an emphasis on charity campaigns, but, “because of what potential employers so tactfully referred to as my ‘history,’” she writes, “I was never ‘quite right’ for the position. In some cases, I was right for all the wrong reasons, as in ‘Of course, your job would require you to attend our events.’ And, of course, these would be events at which press would be in attendance.”

Lewinsky writes that she is still recognized every day, and her name shows up daily in press clips and pop-culture references. She admits that she used to refer to Maureen Dowd as “Moremean Dowdy,” but “today, I’d meet her for a drink.” And she requests one correction of Beyoncé, regarding the lyrics to her recent hit “Partition”: “Thanks, Beyoncé, but if we’re verbing, I think you meant ‘Bill Clinton’d all on my gown,’ not ‘Monica Lewinsky’d.’”

Lewinsky responds to reports made public in February that Hillary Clinton, during the 1990s, had characterized her as a “narcissistic loony toon” in correspondence with close friend Diane Blair. “My first thought,” Lewinsky writes, “as I was getting up to speed: If that’s the worst thing she said, I should be so lucky. Mrs. Clinton, I read, had supposedly confided to Blair that, in part, she blamed herself for her husband’s affair (by being emotionally neglectful) and seemed to forgive him. Although she regarded Bill as having engaged in ‘gross inappropriate behavior,’ the affair was, nonetheless, ‘consensual (was not a power relationship).’”

Somewhere, Rand Paul is weeping.

This is the best way to deal with “issues”. Get all the information out as early as possible. This is now another issue Hillary has put in the past. Thanks to Monica Lewinsky for getting this out now and not in the middle of a presidential campaign.

Why Hillary Clinton will be rubbing elbows with a major Obama critic this month
Snip Clinton will appear at a May 15 fundraiser for the U.S. House campaign of Marjorie Margolies (D), a former Pennsylvania congresswoman and the mother-in-law of her daughter, Chelsea. The event, Clinton’s first political appearance for a 2014 candidate, is being hosted by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a wealthy former Clinton fundraiser who endorsed John McCain and Jon Huntsman Jr. for president instead of supporting Obama. The event was first reported by Politico and confirmed by a person familiar with Clinton’s schedule. De Rothschild backed Clinton against Obama in their historic and lengthy 2008 Democratic primary battle. In September of that year, she made waves when she announced her support for McCain, the Arizona senator and Republican nominee for president. In an earlier interview with CNN, de Rothschild called Obama “an elitist.”
“In an election as important at this, we must choose the candidate who has a proven record of bipartisanship and reforming government, and that’s John McCain. We can’t afford a president who lacks experience and judgment and has never crossed party lines to work for meaningful reform,” she said in a statement at the time announcing her support for McCain. Clinton, who backed Obama after losing to him, expressed disagreement with de Rothschild’s decision. sniphttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/hillary-clintons-first-midterm-event-will-be-hosted-by-a-supporter-who-spurned-obama/

Senator Kay Hagen who voted for ObamaCare is in even deeper trouble now. Thom Tillis has won his primary with more than 40% of the vote.

Hagen ran a despicable campaign even running ads accusing Tillis of being an ObamaCare supporter in order to keep him under 40% and thereby trigger a run-off. All Hagen achieved was to make ObamaCare even more hated. Now Tillis will be able to have 6 months to tie her to ObamaCare and note how she tried to deceive the voters of North Carolina.

Republicans/conservatives who think “this time we’ll tie the Clenis to the war on women and then we will win” will only mange to reinforce their “brand” as panty-sniffing never-learn hypocrites and help Hillary in the process.

—
Indeed Admin, and I see Drudge is sniffing with big snorts.
They should make Monica’s ‘gown’ gold plated and put up on an alter along with Raygun’s old white B-rated cowboy hat.

The Islamic Extremist or Terrorist in Nigeria must think they have hit the jack pot. They have over 200 virgins and they didn’t even have to die to get them. How horrible. But it seems to be more important for FOX, Drudge, and their ilk to sniff the old worn out panties of Monica than to deal with the poor kidnapped school girls and a REAL honest to goodness war on women.

What should concern feminists more? Girls wearing pink or the rise of Boko Haram?

A funny thing happened in the Observer on Sunday. They ran a headline telling us that “pre-teen feminists” are “tired of pink” – with a massive photo of two of them wearing pink. A few pages later, another headline ran “Don’t fret about girls and pink.” So, I’m confused. Is it bad for girls to wear pink, ironic or something we shouldn’t worry about?

What exactly should feminism’s priorities in the 21st century be? Maybe I’m not the man to ask – being a man. But, as a historian, I’ve written a lot about US second wave feminism in the 1970s and I’d like to offer a couple of observations. [snip]

A few weeks ago, the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls in order to sell them into sexual slavery to men in Chad or Cameroon. It’s hard to imagine this happening in the 21st century, but it does – and the West should be screaming in outrage about it. Nick Cohen theorises that Westerners are nervous about covering the subject for fear of “demonising the other”. Such fears are not only cowardly but unfounded. Nigeria is a modern, fast-growing nation (its economy is now bigger than South Africa’s) and Boko Haram is not in the least bit representative of the Islamic majority. To attack Boko Haram is not to attack the poor Muslims of Africa – it is to attack Boko Haram. Importantly, it is to attack a group who define their opposition to modernity through the way that they treat women. This is one of the most terrifying things about Jihadism. It turns women’s bodies into political manifestos.

Of course, I’m not saying that Western feminists aren’t talking about porn or Islamism: they are. I’m simply conscious that there seems to be a debate among Western feminists at the moment about what they should be talking about the most – and I offer these as what seem like incredibly important priorities. Notably, they are things that tend to concern conservatives more than the Left – but, then, conservatism’s emphasis upon the dignity of the individual is something that should strike a chord with those campaigning for women’s rights. The war against gender stereotyping in toys may well seem important to some, but it is surely far less so than the very real war going on between individual rights and religious fanaticism overseas.

The U.S. Capitol Police are investigating threatening emails against Rep. Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican recently tapped to lead a special panel probing the Benghazi terrorist attacks.

The investigation comes after POLITICO reporters and journalists at other outlets received two emails on Tuesday warning that Gowdy would be harmed because of his role in investigating the 2012 attacks.

The Capitol Police would not comment on the scope of the investigation but Officer Shennell Antrobus confirmed that there is “an active, open investigation.”

In March 2006, CBS News announced that President George W. Bush had stumbled into a “record low” approval rating of 34 percent. All the other networks jumped on the poll. CNN was reporting the number every hour on the hour. The survey confirmed their suspicions. The wheels on the Bush presidency had come off.

Last week, ABC and The Washington Post found Barack Obama is “facing the worst poll numbers of his presidency,” with an approval rating of 41 percent, and 52 percent disapproving. It’s another administration on political life support. ABC offered its own survey a mere 18 seconds of attention from “Good Morning America” on April 29, and nothing on its own news that night. The others said nothing.

ABC morning anchor Amy Robach noted: “And President Obama is returning to Washington today, facing the worst poll numbers of his presidency. His approval rating has dropped to 41 percent, mostly because of the economy.” That was the alpha and omega.

Shadow,, how presumptuous we women can be, to endeavor to pursue feminism without male direction! We should have just asked them nicely for their permission to be equal. I’m sure when Alice Paul was strapped down and force-fed that raw egg mixture, after she and other suffragettes went on hunger strike to protest denial of voting rights, she was thinking, “I should get a man to help with this struggle”.

And now we have the voice of wisdom from Sarah Palin. Her statement reflects such a lack of understanding of the reproductive rights issue and such a simplistic, elementary viewpoint, it’s sad and infuriating, at once.

Hillary has had a child. She fully understands the value of each and every child’s life and the imperative to ensure their wellbeing. Hell, she has spent a lifetime working on behalf of children. She has said of abortion they should be “safe, legal, and rare”. That very statement implies a deep understanding of the issue. She also understands that when abortion is the best and sometimes, the only option, it should be legal and available.

And, while we’re on the subject of reproduction, if the government assumes the power to limit or deny reproductive rights of women, that government needs to take it a step further, and pass a law chemically castrating any male who has been an irresponsible father, deadbeat dad, rapist, or child molester.
We know just how little chance there is that the male dominated government (or women in government who have accepted the philosophy on abortion, shaped by males) would ever pass a law inhibiting a male’s reproductive rights or functioning. Hell no. The penis rules.

…after the recent re-appearance of Monica Lewinsky and all the nonstop “analysis” that Monica knew would resurface here’s my two cents…

Monica Lewinsky will be 41 this summmer…she is someone who did all she could to take over her own narrative…

…Monica Lewinsky wrote a book called ‘Monica’s Story’
…had an HBO special to air her narrative
…was interviewed by no less than a very empathetic Barbara Walters
…launched a failed handbag business
…was a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig that failed to help her keep down her own bulging weight gain
…went to London to study get a master’s degree in, no less than, Psychology
…was a host on a fleeting tv dating show

Where is Monica’s responsibility for her own life and her own failures? does she believe that every breath she takes is tied to Bill Clinton and his family?

Who made Monica fat? maybe it is she who cannot control her own impulses…stop blaming others…

…and after failing at all of that…she tells us no one would hire her…

…and supposedly with all that has not been able to hold down a steady job since she was 23…

but evidently at 40 years old, she does not feel she has said and done enough to exploit her self…so she is here to reclaim her narrative and past…and push it on the rest of us whether we want to hear it or not…

*************

having said all that…here are my two cents…

Monica Lewinsky is stalking the Clintons…I will be the first one to say that what Bill Clinton did was WRONG…very wrong…took me a long while to forgive him for that infidelity to Hillary and frankly after Flowers…his trust with me…us…

but come on…the man paid the price…he was impeached, he made multiple apologizes and fast forward 20 years…the man has done so much more good for so many more people and Monica Lewinsky is a shadow far in the past…what good has Monica done? good for anyone but herself??

What did she want and expect Bill and Hill to go open a grocery store in the midwest and stifle their talents and ambitions for her?

Bill and Hill are in the mid sixties and heading into their 70’s…they are about to have a grandchild from their adult and married daughter Chelsea…

…the world has moved on…but Monica wants to relive it all and set her record straight…and she uses the suicide of a sad young man as her motivation and justification to try to steal and make headlines…

…while she lies seductively on a sofa in Vanity Fair…just as in her “poor victim” interview with Barbara Walters where she smiled, flirted and charmed her way through the interview…hardly ever showing the ‘throng wearing vixen’ who went after a married man, who happened to be the President of the USA…

Monica is a selfish, insecure, self-centered mixed up girl who did not grow up…and sadly the NY Post got it right “her life sucks”

what does Monica have to lose? nothing else has worked out for her…she has failed at everything she tried to do on her own…so why not fall back on good old Bill Clinton…the only person who provided the opportunity for her to have the limelight and the attention she craves…

maybe she will get offers and take Paula Jones lead for future magazine shoots…we all can see how that turned out…

if not, Monica now tells us she is going to pursue public forums to discuss bullying…and use the Clintons as her examples…

in the 21st century, Monica Lewinsky is the BULLY…she is the one inviting all the haters to come our from under their rocks and to use her as an excuse to hate the Clintons all over again…and bully Bill and Hillary nonstop…

Monica is the one who won’t let go…

If Monica wanted to be taken seriously she would not need the CRUTCH she is using by dragging the Clintons into her drama…

she has her Psychology degree…go quietly into the night and help people…we don’t need to see you and your “come hither look’ laying across a sofa in Vanity Fair…

…you don’t need photo shoots and wardrobe and make-up and tv interviews to help others…

…Monica is a phony…she is after much more than “helping others”…

…just go do your good deeds on your own…and leave the Clintons and the country alone…we had enough of you in the 1990’s…

Here’s why: An e-mail has surfaced from a deputy national security adviser to Susan Rice on how to characterize the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on Sunday news programs. He advised Rice, then ambassador to the U.N., that her primary goal was to “underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.” The e-mail was redacted when the most-transparent-administration-in-history provided Benghazi documents to Congress earlier, but was found through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Democrats are furious that the House will hold a vote to create a select committee to investigate the administration’s response to the attack in Libya that left four Americans dead. They know this won’t end well.

Though White House officials say they were operating on the best intelligence available, they were willfully ignoring information that the attack was preplanned by groups with terrorist links, a fact that undermined President Obama’s re-election claim that “al-Qaeda is on the run.” Cherry-picking intelligence is a big no-no.

It took real effort for the White House to overlook the tsunami of evidence that contradicted its campaign talking points. Before Rice’s appearances on Sept. 16, 2012, National Public Radio reported that Libya’s president had told NPR that al-Qaeda was responsible for the “precalculated, preplanned attack.” Former deputy CIA director Mike Morell testified last month, “Analysts said from the get-go that al-Qaeda was involved.”

A former deputy chief of mission in Libya, Gregory Hicks, testified last year his “jaw dropped” when he watched Rice blame the video. Retired general Robert Lovell, on duty at U.S. Africa Command at the time, testified last week, “What we did know … was that this was a hostile action … a terrorist attack.” Last week, Fox News’ Bret Baier asked former national security spokesman Tommy Vietor how the administration came up with its video tale. Vietor replied that there were “guys quoted in newspapers saying (the video is why) they were there.” So much for operating on the best intelligence.

White House spokesman Jay Carney improbably claimed that the Rhodes advice was not “explicitly” about Benghazi but about protests throughout the Middle East. CNN’s Jake Tapper called Carney’s comments “dissembling, obfuscating and … insulting.” He was being generous. Rice was dispatched to discuss Benghazi, which is why she was grilled about it on every show.

White House officials brought this House investigation on themselves. They could have avoided it by simply telling the truth. Unfortunately, that was too much to ask.

Gowdy should focus on the fact we were completely unprepared on September 11 for this “precalculated, preplanned attack.”

S, you are right. I ’bout fell off my chair when I read Monica was telling her story for the “first time”. OMG how is she relevant to a damn thing, other than to give the conservative talking heads something to screech about. My gosh, just how disturbed can one group of people be about a BJ in the oval. They all may need therapy or drugs to help them move past this ancient history. Actually we all know they have just used in their fight against Bill. That’s about all they have had. He was just too successful at being POTUS, and they have to find some way to deal with that fact.

Hell, we’d be better off if the one who currently occupies that office would use it for sex instead of writing and passing laws.

Keep him and all his cronies who do his thinking occupied with sex or anything else that will keep them too busy to mess up something else.

“I think a lot of Republicans view Hillary as calculating and manipulative, and that she went through that Lewinsky process and did everything she could to stay in power,” said Hogan Gidley, a GOP operative who has worked on the presidential campaigns of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. “That’s fine… but let’s not forget that the House impeached President Clinton and in fact Democrats then picked up seats in a midterm basically around this issue. So, let’s learn from history here and stick to policy.”

Gidley also noted that for all the fire and brimstone social conservatives rained down on Bill Clinton in the ’90s over his infidelity, Huckabee, who stands poised to be the religious right’s standard-bearer in 2016 if he decides to run again, has declined to join the Lewinsky pile-on. “Huckabee says all the time, ‘You say what you want to about the Clintons, but they stayed married.’ Here we are, the party that promotes marriage as a covenant between man, woman, and God… and there are a lot of Republicans who have gotten divorces since then, while Bill and Hillary have stayed together.”

Meanwhile, the influential conservative activist Grover Norquist cautioned his fellow Republicans against getting distracted from substantive critiques of Hillary Clinton’s record as secretary of state.

“This is the same trick the Clintons pulled on us back in ‘98,” he said. “We didn’t campaign against the massive overspending, or anything else. We were distracted by this bright, shiny object they handed out which was Monica Lewinsky… It will be the same thing this time: ‘Pay not attention to the reset of foreign policy with Russia, or Libya. Oh look, it’s Hillary the victim!’”

Norquist said Republicans will have to demonstrate restraint in avoiding the topic, especially because reporters will try to bait them into talking about it.

“What will happen is the press, if we let them do the debates, will ask questions about Monica, then some Republican will mention it, then the New York Times will say, ‘Oh, the Republicans are so obsessed with Monica!’” Norquist said.

“It’s a constant challenge,” he added. “But it’s like in baseball, if they throw out a bad pitch and you swing at it, then you’re an idiot.”

Republican/conservative panty sniffers got Linda Tripp and others to do the dirty work and now blame the Clintons for “this bright, shiny object they handed out…”

“I think a lot of Republicans view Hillary as calculating and manipulative, and that she went through that Lewinsky process and did everything she could to stay in power,” said Hogan Gidley, a GOP operative who has worked on the presidential campaigns of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum. “That’s fine… but let’s not forget that the House impeached President Clinton and in fact Democrats then picked up seats in a midterm basically around this issue. So, let’s learn from history here and stick to policy.”

___________

And heaven knows there have been no men who have had affairs, cried on TV, while their wives held their hand – in order to hang on to power.

Newt could write a book on battling to stay in power. While was going all righteously indignant on the Lewenski thing, condemning Bill to the fires of hell, he was sleeping around.

There have been examples of plenty of elected officials on both sides who have been through scandals and tried to remain in power. Hillary had a daughter to think of. She wanted to save her marriage. If it were any other couple, the right wingers would be lauding the sanctity of the family unity and maintaining it at all costs. But, if that had been Hillary’s motive, so the hell what. Had she been a man, she wouldn’t be accused of “holding onto power”. That’s sexist drivel, and tabloid crap.

He represented Santorum and Huckabee? One is bat shit crazy, and the other is about as dynamic and exciting as Mr. Rogers – nice, but not a presence.

Harry going off on the Koch Brothers again. Something I have noticed about these Harry hit-pieces lately. Notice how there is never anyone else around? It is like he sneeks into the Senate chamber in the middle of the night to tape these things. There is a thin line between determined and obsessed. Harry crossed that line a long time ago.

Absolutely! Who the hell told her to do that should be taken out to a she’d and only one comes back!
Administration
Agree with everything you wrote up thread about Hill needing to come clean.The more she doesn’t, the more the smell comes off the rose.

To us it was irrelevant if the video offended – the First Amendment came first.

The Benghazi cover-up is an offense to the First Amendment. The Benghazi cover-up is an offense to the values of America.

Your spirited defense of irresponsible speech as a First Amendment right means that everyone but the President has a right to say anything they want even if it’s offensive or untrue. This is pointless.

Personally, I stopped believing anything the government says a long time ago, but most Americans still believe almost anything they throw at us as long as infotainment gives it the AOK.

For instance, few people questioned, then or now, the veracity of the explanation for 9/11/01, which tricked us into one war that’s still going on now, or the veracity of Saddam Hussein’s WMDs, which got us into another war.

As measured by their effects, the scale of both those lies – 9/11 and the WMDs, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths – is far greater than that of Benghazi, which, covering up four deaths, at most resulted in adversely affecting an election, “in coarse political terms” as you say.

In other words, if irresponsible speech is your measure of the First Amendment, then you might as well give that right to the President and his henchmen, and excuse things like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq along with a cover-up of Benghazi.

My view is that responsibility has to enter the equation somewhere and, if it cannot be asked of the speaker, then it has to be exercised by the listener. Your low-cost interpretation of free speech for the maker of the video that prompted attacks against the other 19 embassies on 9/11/12 – and no one has disputed that fact – is bewildering to say the least. Perhaps it is because those other attacks resulted in no American deaths, so we can ignore them?

As for the investigations by the select committee, which I approve, we can be sure that, no matter what Hillary Clinton says, Republicans will construe sound bites of her testimony to crucify her. It’s their First Amendment right to do so, I suppose?

I have liked Trey Gowdy as well, however, power and politics do strange things to people, so I will withhold my total support of him and praise until we see if he is going to be fair in his investigation into Benghazi or if he will revert to being just another Rep hack trying to take down Hillary. FOX News is quickly moving to the old Clinton Derangement Syndrome stance it had during Bill Clinton’s presidency. Almost every program NOW hammers away at Hillary and here we thought FOX was the most fair and balanced news for the past six years. So let’s hope Gowdy is the real deal and wants to FAIRLY get to the bottom of what happened.

Personally, I stopped believing anything the government says a long time ago, but most Americans still believe almost anything they throw at us as long as infotainment gives it the AOK.
—————
That is unfortunately the position of the Washington State Supreme Court–that a politician cannot be held LEGALLY liable for the lies he tells during the course of the campaign. The assumption is that his opponent will correct those lies, and that is consistent with the premise of an adversary system. The plain truth however is different. As a practical matter courts do not want to get into the business of regulating the substance of what is said in campaigns.

But here we are talking about something entirely different. The question here is whether a politician can, and should be held POLITICALLY accountable for the promises he makes during the course of a campaign, when he breaches those promises in the course of governance. For example, when poppy Bush repeated Reagan’s words read my lips no new taxes and then agreed to tax increases which adversely affected the people who voted for him believing he would not raise taxes.

If we should not believe anything a politician says, then how can we know whether he is worth voting for? Flip a coin? Oh sure, you can look at past performance, but that is an unreliable indicator. A better standard perhaps is how long has he been in Washington and who are his contributors. But the average citizen will not do that sort of due diligence. It is the premise of the Tea Party that when a politician makes a clear, specific and unequivocal commitment to do something that a de facto contract is formed with the electorate to follow through on that promise. That is what I believe. It is the only way to effectuate democracy. Otherwise it is kabuki theater.

Lynn Cheney was interviewed the other day about the Lewinsky book and she speculated that the impetus for this came from the Clinton campaign, to vet this issue well before 2016 and thus lessen its impact. I am skeptical that this is the case, but she did say something which bears repeating. She said that after being around politics as long as she has the narrative which is served up to the public to chew on is almost never the real story of what is going on. Prior to 2008 big media was committed to finding the real story and reporting it. They have suspended that practice in order to canonize Obama and inoculate him against criticism. In so doing, they have undermined democracy.

Hillary’s latest comments that an investigation about Benghazi is not necessary make her part of the problem, not the cure.
I am beyond disappointed and am re evaluating my opinion of her as a future POTUS.
The Obama administration has been the worst in our history IMHO. Her support helped him get elected twice.
She is all in and I have seriously lost respect and trust in her. I believe the Benghazi tragedy is a white house affair and Hillary had to participate or resign. Better for her to tell the truth and admit she wanted to keep her job. This will be her undoing.

I have been defending Hillary to friends who despise O as much as I do. These people are mostly former Dems like myself. I campaigned for Hillary in 2008, but it has become increasingly difficult to defend her on Benghazi.
Admin has claimed that the truth will set her free. What is she waiting for?

Some of us here who have been calling for HRC to kick all things Obama to the curb are not going to like it when she goes to bat for the Affordable Care Act. This is what she had to say about it to the “National Council for Behavioral Health” in Maryland:

“There have been many complaints and concerns about the Affordable Care Act, but I’ve been struck by the polling I’ve been reading,” she said. “Because it tells the same story: A small majority of Americans don’t think they like the Affordable Care Act, but a large majority of Americans don’t want to do away with the protections that are in the Affordable Care Act. A small majority wants to repeal it, but that is slowly receding as a rising majority says, ‘No, fix it.’ This is the tradition of good, old-fashioned American pragmatism.”

Her comments earned a positive reception in the audience, which included many health care professionals.

“Yes, there are things that can be fixed, but just the preexisting conditions elimination in and of itself is such a huge gift,” she said. “We never should have had to pass legislation for it.”

After talking extensively on the subject of income equality, she continued with:

“We need to be honest about what’s happening in our country,” she said. “We need [to] take a clear-eyed view about some of the causes of this social collapse.”

She called for expanded health care; affordable child care; raising the minimum wage; paid family leave and “for women we need to ensure equal pay for equal work,” among other policies.

I could swear HRC is taking her cues from the French system here, where mothers get 2 months paid leave before and after childbirth and fathers get two months’ paid leave when a new child is born.

Concerning equal pay, I think the best thing that can be done about it is getting HRC elected to the presidency. Within a few months, the “equal-pay” scheme in the White House would be reversed, with women getting all the top jobs. That would send a pretty strong signal to the country.

Southern Born
May 8, 2014 at 10:31 am
I have liked Trey Gowdy as well, however, power and politics do strange things to people, so I will withhold my total support of him and praise until we see if he is going to be fair in his investigation into Benghazi or if he will revert to being just another Rep hack trying to take down Hillary. FOX News is quickly moving to the old Clinton Derangement Syndrome stance it had during Bill Clinton’s presidency. Almost every program NOW hammers away at Hillary and here we thought FOX was the most fair and balanced news for the past six years. So let’s hope Gowdy is the real deal and wants to FAIRLY get to the bottom of what happened.
________________

I agree with everything you said, SB.

Jes, As the mother of a son, I would stop short of the abort all the fetuses that are male plan (it’s little King Herodesque). I wouldn’t be opposed of knocking around a few grown male (or female) sexists a bit, tho. Actually, I think it would be rather enjoyable.

Dems to huddle Friday on Benghazi
House Democrats will meet Friday morning to discuss the party’s approach to the Republicans’ special probe into the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya.With House Republicans expected to pass legislation Thursday creating a select panel to examine the Obama administration’s response to the tragedy, Democratic leaders are facing the question of whether to participate in the process or boycott it. The issue has roughly split rank-and-file members. Some Democrats fear that seating members on the panel will legitimize an investigation they’ve condemned as a GOP witch hunt designed solely to beat up on the White House. Another camp is warning that a boycott would allow Republicans to shower accusations on the administration without any defense from Obama’s Democratic allies….http://thehill.com/homenews/house/205628-dems-to-huddle-friday-on-benghazi

Hope that huddling goes as well for them as the initial Benghazi huddle did. 🙂

The Pubs will be selective about media companies involved in presidential debates in 2016. I believe Admin advised this in 2012. After Candy helped Obama debate Romney , I wonder if GOP will stay away from CNN.
_____________

“RNC Moves to Limit 2016 Debates”

The Republican National Committee’s rules committee has passed new rules to cut into the number of presidential primary debates.

At a meeting in Memphis, the RNC approved creating a committee to decide which debates candidates can participate in and which media organizations will be involved, including involving more conservative journalists in the process.
Candidates who violate the rules and participate in other debates will be barred from future ones, a major disincentive.

The war on women thing is absurd. Many of us have been coming here for years. I have not forgotten the attacks 2008. Pigs at something awful advocated raping a woman with a knife. She had to change her identity because she was harrassed.

WBBOIE lmnopqrst
You have far to many letters in your id.
Agree with most of what you say about Trey Gowdy but feel you missed one point. He is not just smart he is very polite. Going to be hard to demonize him. He reeks of Southern Charm. Variety deleted a thousand comments today because they were critical of Obama. Hollywood is getting a splash of reality. The Singer case is not going away and audiances are flocking to films that the smarty pants said noone wanted to see.

LIARS GET caught. They lose track of the narrative and bury themselves. Think that is what is taking place now. I am in coury all the time with my nephew who wants sole custody of his daughter who I have taken care of sincr she was a wee thing. NOTgoing to happen. NO way am I going to let her live in a ghetto so he can get free rent. Back to liars. The judge asked him if he had any history with the police. He lied. She said you do realize I have a copy in front of me that says you have had more than one run in. He still tried to lie. My attorney was warned that if she kept laughing at the stooge she would be held in contempt. Thing is with lies they just spin out of control.

wbboei
May 9, 2014 at 3:41 am
More proof that Obama lied through his teeth.
He says he gave the order to do everything possible to save the troops.

No proof has been submitted that the president did anything. Those orders require a paper trail not oral only orders. Governments run on protocol and paper. So where is it? Rhodes worry that a total policy failure in the ME was going to be exposed right before an election was the tipping point in indirectly exposing the mess. The disjointed and ridiculous diversion being cooked up by campaign hacks like Rhodes and Dude Vietor showed a White House in complete disarray that was solely focused on the election. They could not walk and chew gum at the same time. Campaigning and election strategy was all that was being done and governing was probably number 10 on the list.

Rhodes is a third rate hack. The worry that “policy failure” exposure would be the result of four murdered government employees was not his original thought. He is not smart enough to know that. Someone told him this little factoid and that his job was to cook up a cover story which he did. How this memo got released, even with a court order, was sloppy. Then sending out a stooge like Vietor to defend it in the media made it notorious. It was like sending out Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog to explain quantum theory. The boob’s boobs were home alone.

The inquiry by Gowdy is probably going to be a twisting road of ignorance, stupid juvenile ideology, government by political campaign, ass covering, and blame Hillary. I would like to see Hillary’s Obama planted minders at State called to testify and read their emails. I’m buying a new television for my office tomorrow. I want to watch all of the hearings. It is going be better than Netflix.

Still4Hill has posted some good information in response to article in Daily Beast accusing Hillary or refusing to designate Boko Haram, the abductors of the girls, as a terrorist group. Still points out that Hillary was the first to designate some individual members of the group as terrorists, and that she laid the groundwork that made it possible for Kerry to apply the terrorist designation to the group.

There is just no end to the BS being released by the pathetic Hillary Haters.

It is instructive to follow the Haqqani network here.
Haqqani individuals were designated first (05/11/11, 08/16/11, 11/01/11). Later (09/07/12) Hillary sent a report to Congress saying she was designating Haqqani, the entity, an FTO. Boko Haram individuals were also designated first (06/21/12) under Hillary Clinton. Designation of the entity as an FTO came later under her successor.
Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs under Hillary, a dedicated and diligent public servant and her State Department methodically followed protocol all during her administration at DOS.
Here is a little that you need to know about terrorist designation.
It follows criteria established by Executive Order 13224 issued by George W. Bush on September 23, 2001. Here are a few important items.
In general terms, the Order provides a means by which to disrupt the financial support network for terrorists and terrorist organizations by authorizing the U.S. government to designate and block the assets of foreign individuals and entities that commit, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism. In addition, because of the pervasiveness and expansiveness of the financial foundations of foreign terrorists, the Order authorizes the U.S. government to block the assets of individuals and entities that provide support, services, or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists and terrorist organizations designated under the Order, as well as their subsidiaries, front organizations, agents, and associates.
SNIP
For the purpose of the Order, “terrorism” is defined to be an activity that (1) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and (2) appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.

The disjointed and ridiculous diversion being cooked up by campaign hacks like Rhodes and Dude Vietor showed a White House in complete disarray that was solely focused on the election. They could not walk and chew gum at the same time. Campaigning and election strategy was all that was being done and governing was probably number 10 on the list.
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That says it all.

Any honest accounting of the imperious reign of Mess-I-Ahhhh Obama must stress that the thousand misfortunes which have befallen our country these past six years are a direct reflection of a corrupt press, and a theory of government which rejects all accountability and consists of nothing more than the continuing campaign and bamboozling an American public which is dumb as a rock. Part and parcel of this is allowing campaign hacks like those you mention to commandeer government.

I have it on good authority that Dude Vietor was born without eyelids, so his parents took him to see Messiah Obama hoping for a miracle. Unfortunately, the Messiah failed in his ministrations. Instead of granting him eyelids, he gave him the look and brain of a perennial adolescent. Whereupon, the scriptures record, he was recruited into a children’s crusade led by the aforesaid messiah, to help wreak havoc upon the land. The end result is what you see. No eyelids and an aversion to the truth inculcated in him by the Mess-i-ahhh.

The inquiry by Gowdy is probably going to be a twisting road of ignorance, stupid juvenile ideology, government by political campaign, ass covering, and blame Hillary.
———————
It will be up to Gowdy to prevent that from happening, and he has taken the first step by refusing to use Benghazi to do likewise. Ultimately, he holds the whip hand on this, because if his sole objective is to be non partisan and simply follow the evidence where it leads then some democrats may take a look at their hole card, realize that they are defending an indefensible position in order to protect a lame duck and rise to the challenge. I am thinking of people like Joe Manchen, only in the House. Ultimately, to pull this thing off and to navigate through the political minefield he needs a partner on the other side of the table, like the democrats had in Howard Baker during Watergate. That said, there is no question that partisan fires will burn, but if this is done right, democrats will begin to look stupid in trying to shut down the investigation or turn it in a different direction. The key will be the new evidence it produces, and the ability to counter the political spin on both sides. Where his own side is concerned, Trey must make it crystal clear that Obama will seek to dismiss this investigation as political, and if anything is done by Republicans to reinforce that view, it will end in failure. He must make them understand that if that happens he will step down and at that point, they will have hell to pay.

Correction: and he has taken the first step by refusing to use Benghazi as a campaign point and has admonished his colleagues to do likewise, because to do so plays right into the hands of his adversary.

The Rhoades email opened a new chapter in the Benghazi affair. It is amazing they failed to shred it. Obviously, an oversight. Now we are in a Watergate 21st century mode, except in this case, it is a bit more than a burglary. In this case the end result was fatalities, serial lies, and a corruption of a presidential election. Truth is stranger than fiction. Here is a portion of Judge Neopolitano’s take on same. It reflects among other things the slippery slope of abandoning the pretense of governing for the rosier lights of campaigning. Interestingly, some lies about political campaigns are beyond the scope of judicial review. But these lies are of a different character which the Constitution takes cognizance of under the heading of high crimes and misdemeanors. Advice to Democrats: now that all this has happened you politicize the process for a lame duck at your own peril. The stupid ones will ignore this advice. The smarter ones will temporize, see how this thing proceeds and avoid making a decision until they have to. New evidence will emerge which alters the political landscape for all concerned.
———————–

Now, with the discovery of the Rhodes email, it appears that the White House did use the instruments of government to aid the president’s re-election campaign by deceiving the American people and telegraphing that proposed deception to the president’s campaign officials. Using government personnel and assets to coordinate a political campaign, even if done truthfully and above board, violates federal criminal statutes.

As if that were not bad enough, it now appears that the State Department had special operations forces in close proximity to Benghazi, and the White House ordered them to stand down rather than confront the attackers, meet force with force and endeavor to save the lives of the ambassador and others, though at the risk of contradicting the president’s political boast.
When the truth — that the Benghazi attack was an Al Qaeda-organized assault complete with military hardware and sophisticated planning — became known, and when the apparent deception by the president, the White House and the State Department was discovered, Republicans were furious.

Then the cover-up of the cover-up began, as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform learned when it tried to determine who told the U.S. forces to stand down, who dispatched Rice to tell lies, who certified that the Rhodes email did not exist and who then eventually released it. The committee wanted to know whether Rice was duped or was part of a plot to use the instruments of government to lie and deceive and enhance Obama’s chances of defeating Romney.

So, the Oversight Committee issued subpoenas and held hearings and concluded — a conclusion with which even the Democrats now agree — that the Benghazi attack was part of an organized terrorist assault, and the consulate was undefended.

Then Judicial Watch revealed the reply to its FOIA request of the White House, which included the Rhodes email, and a political firestorm broke loose. Speaker John Boehner addressed that firestorm by asking the House to form a Select Committee — one whose sole goal is to get to the bottom of this — and to grant it a serious budget and a full legal and investigative staff, and to set it loose upon the administration’s deceivers.

Already, the administration has declared that many of the documents the Select Committee will seek have been classified as top secret, and the president is free to classify any document he wants for any reason he chooses. Legally, that argument is correct. Frustrated congressional Republicans have no one to blame but themselves here, as they gave that legal power to President George W. Bush.

Nevertheless, can the Select Committee subpoena the president and his records to find out where he was during the eight-hour attack, who gave the order to stand down and permit murder rather than suffer political embarrassment, and who concocted the Rice deceptions?

Yes. And he will claim executive privilege, and a federal judge will make the call.

And so, here comes Watergate, 21st-century style — except this time around, innocent people died. This time around, will it have the

Gowdy is no doubt the best choice to head the select committee because he’s competent, interested and probably fair; but let’s not forget that the object of this whole “investigation” for the last 19 months has been to bring down Hillary Clinton, and that is not going to change. The Republicans want some more sound bites they can construe into nails for her coffin.

The delusional Rand Paul (on Hannity) has his hammer out swinging at the nails already. He says, of the committee, “We need to know who was responsible and she was in charge.” That sentence all by itself contains the accusation and the guilty sentence wrapped into one. Besides, HRC immediately claimed responsibility for the disaster at Benghazi, now Rand Paul wants to hear it again. She went through two days of questioning on the subject and that’s not enough for him.

He combines debunked charges of Obama’s stand-down orders with the contention that Obama wasn’t even there, to say “If the president wasn’t there… who was really in charge? Was Hillary Clinton in charge?… And if Hillary Clinton was in charge, was she the one who gave to order to stand down, the order not to go and send reinforcements?”

So he combines (i) debunked charges of stand-down orders with (ii) debunked ideas that Obama wasn’t there, and clinches it all with (iii) total ignorance of the role and powers of the Secretary of State, who cannot give or withhold orders to any military staff.

Seven months before Benghazi, Rand Paul proposed cutting the State Department budget by 71%. I’m telling you, this guy is as delusional as Obama but the more he jawbones the media about Hillary Clinton, the closer he gets to the Republican presidential nomination.

The whole process shows that the Republicans are out for HRC’s blood and they’re not worried about the truth on the matter of Benghazi. If they were interested in truth, they would have named a select committee to investigate Fast and Furious, which was much more deadly and stupid than Benghazi; but there was no way to link Hillary Clinton to that.

“The whole process shows that the Republicans are out for HRC’s blood and they’re not worried about the truth on the matter of Benghazi. If they were interested in truth, they would have named a select committee to investigate Fast and Furious, which was much more deadly and stupid than Benghazi; but there was no way to link Hillary Clinton to that.”

The Repubs have been dragging their feet on ALL of the scandals…at least until it got closer to the 2016 General election. You bet they want to hang Benghazi on HRC!

The Bama attack showed [Boko Haram’s] substantial firepower, including
machine
guns, large numbers of rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, a sign the weapons flood from the Libyan war that helped rebels seize parts of Mali last year has reached Nigeria, officials say.

bottom line…O was asleep at the wheel during Benghazi…literally…the rumour was that he went to sleep to get ready for big fundraiser next day in the heat of the campaign…

(this is what O and his peeps must really fear is going to come out…the perfect metaphor for O…where was he when the 3:00 AM call came?…just as Hillary predicted…he was asleep…they must have paniced Romney would make mincemeat out of that) especally with four Americans dead…

if the Dims are smart they will realize there is no positive that can come from protecting lame duck O and do what they can to shield and stand up for Hillary…O is essentially useless to them for the next two years…except for two years of his whining…and more fundraisers…and golf…and his big grin…

if the Dims are smart they will realize there is no positive that can come from protecting lame duck O and do what they can to shield and stand up for Hillary…O is essentially useless to them for the next two years…except for two years of his whining…and more fundraisers…and golf…and his big grin…
_______________

That’s a rational, logical reason for the Dims to support Hillary. I hope there are enough rational minds in the Dim party to realize it.

And our goal and our task in this midterm has to be to break that grip, that particular view, that particular wrongheaded vision this country has so that we can get back to the business of investing in the American people and investing in America’s future.

Say what you must about Condy. I’m not her biggest fan, but I thought this protest by super-lib students and professors, of her planned speech at Rutgers University commencement was over the top. Truth is, the extreme Left does not want unity or government that represents both sides in this country. They’re smarter. They’re more sophisticated. They’re cooler, and we need to get the hell out of the way and let them do what’s best for us.

This must be commencement season on campus, because the heckler’s veto is back. When one of the nation’s most expensive colleges and universities invites the rare Republican to address the ceremonies, the rude and the thuggish are guaranteed to shout him out of the cloistered hall.

Condoleezza Rice bowed out as graduation speaker at Rutgers University amid protests by a small but noisy gaggle of intolerant leftist students and professors offended by the former secretary of state’s role in the Iraq war.

Miss Rice was as usual more gracious than her foes. “Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families,” she said, announcing her withdrawal. “Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”

Noting her background as a professor at Stanford University, she said, “I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony, and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.”

S
May 9, 2014 at 1:53 pm
bottom line…O was asleep at the wheel during Benghazi…literally…the rumour was that he went to sleep to get ready for big fundraiser next day in the heat of the campaign…
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Justice Cardozo once remarked about the tendency of democratic ideals to expand themselves to the limits of their logic, sweeping all competing interests under their feet, until things fall apart. This can be seen in the entire area of civil rights where equal opportunity gets twisted into racial preferences, but it is equally apparent in all other areas. The latest example is the effort by the politicized Pentagon to ban smoking by our soldiers. This from the same administration that leaves injured warriors to die in our military hospitals by a Veterans Administration Secretary appointed by Obama who takes no responsibility for their deaths, but is keen to ban smoking. To these deranged leftists, Shakespeare offered the best rebuttal: there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy and lay down thy flattering unction/

I hope you are wrong. This country needs a hero and maybe Tray Gowdy could be that hero. It will not be easy because the Repubs will be putting on the pressure. I know Fast and Furious deserves attention more, but I think it was the Judicial Watch memo that busted Benghazi open. They screwed up.

“The whole process shows that the Republicans are out for HRC’s blood and they’re not worried about the truth on the matter of Benghazi. If they were interested in truth, they would have named a select committee to investigate Fast and Furious, which was much more deadly and stupid than Benghazi; but there was no way to link Hillary Clinton to that.”

I still say BO is chemically dependent and was not simply asleep the night of 9/11/12, he needed a good nights sleep for that fundraiser and was knocked out with something that they could not wake him and get anything coherent out of him.

Lu4PUMA, there’s something to jeswezy’s comment (which I quote above) about the Republicans, but I think they mostly dragged their feet– especially on Benghazi– because they wanted the Select Committee to fall within the upcoming General Election cycle. Of course, we didn’t have those emails concerning Rice and the “video” story line back then, but I can’t help but feel that the Select Committee could have been established much earlier. In any case, we need to get to the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. (i.e Basically, who was responsible for what?, etc.) Don’t think the CIA or the WH will come out well. (And I don’t doubt they will try to make HRC the scapegoat.) In any case, the Benghazi tragedy ultimately rests with BO as the Commander-in-Chief.

This has been an extremely tough month in my country. I have an uncle that lives in Abuja that missed being killed by the bus bomb at the motor park by about an hour. Christians had been threatened in the north all the time in the past, but Boko Haram have just lost their minds because now they are targeting their own. One of the things that I remain mad at til today is how long it took President Clinton (and I really love him) to go see what was happening in Rwanda. The same applies to uncle idiot in the White House now. Unfortunately, leadership I my country still cannot be trusted. That said, bumbles could have easily sent an investigative team along with an interdiction team and those girls could be home now. I am encouraged by the outpouring of support as a result of the protests. I look forward to the world dedicating the resources to match that support. I would ask from everyone here continued prayers. No resources as at yet. Can’t be sure of where any donations would end up.

Charlie Rose interviewed a nun this week that talked about not just the girls in my county, but across Africa that are invisible. I wish there was a way to get her in touch with Hillary. Please take a few minutes and watch. Thank you.

trixta
May 9, 2014 at 8:28 pm
Lu4PUMA, there’s something to jeswezy’s comment (which I quote above) about the Republicans, but I think they mostly dragged their feet– especially on Benghazi– because they wanted the Select Committee to fall within the upcoming General Election cycle.
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You give them more credit for strategy than I do. Trust me. Speaker Boeher is no strategist. He was inclined to give Obama the benefit of the doubt at every turn and to vilify those in his own party who wanted to get to the bottom of this whole sordid affair. He is a mush ball, and but for the Rhoades memo uncovered not be any of the five congressional committees politicing over this issue, but by Judicial Watch he would have put the entire focus on Obamacare. Indeed there are those like George Will who believe it is a mistake for Republicans to delve into this issue, which leaves one wondering whether in his view they are anything more than potted plants. There are risks involved in tackling this issue, it could backfire, and big media will carpet bomb them for even trying. But this is something that must be pursued, not through speeches as we have had up to now, but with all the tools of pre trial discovery. And if Hillary wants to be president then she should be prepared to face those questions. In fact, she should be more interested in finding the answers than Gowdy, and to date that has not happened. What I am saying is she should provide answers and the Republicans are entitled to draw rational conclusions from same. To date, the absence of answers from her, and the question what difference does it make hangs in the air, and it is up to her to provide a constructive response. This is serious business, and it bears directly on the question of who should be president, and unlike the Lewinsky bullshit, regardless of who is behind it, this is where the rubber meets the road. I believe that the CIA was running Iran Contra type operations and the Obama Administration was trying to micromanage an election through a foreign policy meme rather than dealing with the situation on the ground and I do not think this was her fault. On the other hand, I have seen comments that Hillary said she was in charge of foreign policy and Obama was in charge of domestic policy. If that is the case, then she is more culpable than I think she is. The point I guess is that she should not try to avoid this investigation or thwart it, but should make every effort to see that those questions are answered because they do matter to the country and to her election prospects in 2016. Evasiveness in these circumstances undermines trust in government, and in the tenor of her leadership, which I dedicated a book to in 2008, and was complimented on it in writing by her husband. I have not lost faith in Hillary, but I firmly believe she needs to face this issue head on, with an eye toward answering legitimate questions, and if mistakes were made, people need to understand how and why this happened.

I agree with whoever said up thread that the Republicans were dragging their feet about Benghazi till it was closer to the elections and could use it to bring Hillary down. Do they really want to know the truth? It seems that the truth is not important to them. It’s all political. Hillary is being accused of everything evil on FOX News on every program now days. They are hammering away and setting a narrative right now. Can you imagine what will happen if/when she declares she is running for president? At this point, I have absolutely no faith in ANY Republican in Congress to be fair to Hillary with all the spewing now…factual or not. Shingles, hoof and mouth disease…yes indeed, it is that Hillary Clinton’s fault.

I hope I’m pleasantly surprised by Trey Gowdy but I hold very little hope for fairness from even him. Someone else said that the pressure will be too great on him from the Reps in Congress, the Republican committee and of course those snakes behind the scenes and we certainly know some of them very well. We will never forget.

I am working hard to keep Administrator’s words in my mind that Hillary will come out of this in good shape and BO will stink. If not for the media, I would be a firm believer.

Well, big media has been fixated on the question of whether the democrats will participate in the Benghazi hearing. Larry, among others hopes they do not, and frankly so do I. But I know they will. Big media also reports that Pelosi is opposed to participation. That stands to reason because she is an idiot. That may seem like a harsh thing to say, but if you examine her off the wall statements and childlike behavior over the past six years, no other conclusion is possible. Moreover, an acquaintance of mine had lunch with her and the late head of the International Longshoremen and Warehouseman’s Union (ILWU)on several occasions, and he confirmed to me that she is in fact an idiot. That was twenty years ago, but she has not changed one wit. She has been propped up by former lieutenants like Waxman and Miller and seniority. She is a lot like Harry Reid in that respect-quavering voice, delusional statements, hyper partisanship. And no one knows this better than the denisons of big media. So why in the world do they pay any attention to her when she says they will not participate. Everyone knows they will, for no other reason that they want to be inside the tent pissing out, than inside the tent pissing in. It is all about obstructing the process and preventing the American People from knowing the truth. That in a nutshell is what we are dealing with and it is a bore.

Correction: OUTSIDE the tent pissing in. It is all about obstructing the process and preventing the American People from knowing the truth. That in a nutshell is what we are dealing with and it is a CRASHING bore.

Wbboei, like you we do not give Republicans too much “credit for strategy” nor do we believe Boner has the wit nor courage to lead strategically. The notion that Republicans waited until now for a Benghazi hearing to hurt Hillary does not hold water.

First, their entire strategy against Hillary Clinton 2016 will be to tie Hillary to Obama. We were the first to write that and the many articles flooding out now state that without equivocation (read Michael Barone’s latest for instance). Why not have many, many hearings on many many issues if the strategy is to hurt Hillary? For instance a select committee could have been established long ago to investigate ObamaCare. Certainly such a select committee could be deployed to attack Hillary, n’est-ce pas? How about a select committee to investigate the many failures in preventing the Boston Bombing? That implicates the State Department at a time Hillary was heading the department. A select committee to investigate Fast and Furious? That implicates the State Department as well when Hillary was at the helm. What about a select committee to investigate foreign policy disasters? There certainly are many now that Kerry is at the helm but that could easily be turned into a Hillary Hunt. The premise is particularly weak when one considers the possibility of a Boko Haram investigation and why Hillary’s State Deparment failed to declare that a terrorist organization. There are tons of investigations the Republicans could have had to hurt Hillary.

Second, if the goal was to hurt Hillary why not wait until after (or just before) this November’s elections? By establishing the select committee now Republicans allow plenty of time for all or a great many of the questions to be answered before the elections this November. If the full truth comes out before this November the full fury of Benghazi will be spent in this election not the next in 2016. ObamaCare had already meant November 2014 was going to be a horror for Obama Dimocrats so it is not in the interests of Republicans to fire all their guns now. It is in the interests of Obama Dimocrats. This is why many see the Lewinsky story emerging now is good for Hillary. More bad news for Obama Dimocrats now will not bring proportional electoral defeat. There is a floor to the D vote so the interests there are to get all the garbage out now before 2016.

For Hillary Clinton 2016 the interests are to get everything out now before this November’s elections. While some winced and felt emotionally impacted we thought the Lewinsky story coming out this past week was a boon precisely because it lances yet another potential boil. Frankly, we have had to restrain ourselves from going all Monica all the time with a particular focus on Linda Tripp because we love replaying fights already won that we win again over and over. While it might be emotionally draining for Hillary personally no doubt she too is “happy” the Lewinsky story blew up on 2014 before summer and November and not in 2016. The same is likely true about Benghazi – emotionally draining but in the end the timing could not be better.

If the Republicans did think strategically on Benghazi as primarily a way to hurt Hillary – not get to the truth of the deaths (including an ambassador) as some incorrectly premise, why not wait until immediately after November’s elections when their numbers will be strengthened and thereby they could staff the committee in a very very lopsided manner as befits their numbers?

The latest investigation into the Benghazi attack reminds us that the issue isn’t going away any time soon. Pundits are already speculating about potential damage to Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects, but don’t believe the hype: Scandals rarely matter much in presidential election campaigns.

A far more significant threat to her potential candidacy is Americans’ desire for new leadership after eight years of the Obama administration. A Pew Research Center/USA Today poll found this week that 65 percent of Americans would “like to see a president who offers different policies and programs.” Only 30 percent said they wanted ones “similar to those of the Obama administration.”

Some of those disaffected citizens are presumably Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who will ultimately support the party’s nominee in 2016, but the problem that the poll highlights is real. Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist, calls this the “time for change” effect.

“When a party has held the White House for two or more terms,” he said, “voters will be more likely to feel that it is time to give the opposing party an opportunity to govern.” Consider, for instance, the 1992 Clinton campaign mantra “change vs. more of the same” that was featured in the documentary “The War Room.”

As Abramowitz has shown, the incumbent party has typically fared worse in “time for change” elections like 2016 during the post-World War II era. When the incumbent party has held the White House for two or more terms, it has won only two of nine elections since 1948. When the incumbent party has held the presidency for only one term, it has won seven of eight.

Moreover, historical data suggests that the public’s attitude today is similar to the run-up to a previous “time for change” election that didn’t go well for the incumbent party. As the chart indicates, the percentage of Americans who currently favor “different policies and programs” is closer to levels from the 2005-2006 period under George W. Bush, another relatively unpopular second-term president presiding over a weak economic recovery, than from 1999-2000, when Bill Clinton was president and the economy was much stronger.

Of course, it’s far too soon to know how well the economy will be performing in 2016, which is the most important factor in determining which candidate wins. But given the hurdles Clinton could face, she may be wishing for a change, too — back to 2008, when she and the Democrats were the ones calling for change rather than trying to defend their record and hang on to the White House for one more term.

We realize that Senate rules are complex and difficult to understand, but the president did serve in the Senate and should be familiar with its terms and procedures. Looking at the numbers, he might have been able to make a case that Republicans have blocked about 50 bills that he had wanted passed, such as an increase in the minimum wage. But instead, he inflated the numbers to such an extent that he even included votes in which he, as senator, supported a filibuster.

admin
May 10, 2014 at 10:06 am
——————
Correct on all points. Two years is like 10 lifetimes in politics. As you may know Lynn Cheney is floating the idea that the Clinton’s got Vanity Fair to call Lewinsky and solicit this story. That would make sense because Ron Paul has been beating that drum, and an early disclosure will render it all moot for most voters by 2016. The only reason I remain skeptical is because Vanity Fair and that scumbag Todd Purdam (husband of DeeDee Myers) wrote a hit piece on Bill, which was based on hearsay, inuendo etc. To me, those people are lower than dirt, and if it were within my power to throw them a life ring, then to avoid a calamity, I would toss them an anvil that looked like a life ring, tell them bon viage and let them drown.

admin
May 10, 2014 at 10:26 am
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As I believe I said somewhere above the Pew Poll tells you everything we need to know on the question of time for change or stay the course. This will have to be done, but it must be done obliquely, and under the banner of changed circumstances, and a new path to achieve traditional democrat objective. There is another dynamic taking shape as well, it is something I have proposed several times in the past to left wing friend and family members and gotten no bites whatsoever: namely, a coalition between the left and the right to dismantle the corporate state. Ironically or not, Ralph Nader has come out with a book proposing the exact same thing, and showing examples where this has actually occurred. This will not happen in 2016–that is too early. But what happens in that election will accelerate this. The catalyst will come from the Republican Party where according to Red State, the establishment republicans are spending twice as much money to defeat conservative candidates in their own party as they are to defeating democrats. That is the ghost of Christmases to come, and a corresponding break up of that party. Once again, it is a Washington vs the American People thing, and the results of the recent Princeton study which establishes that the elites get what they want over the objections of the American People 45% of the time, and the American People get what they want only 14% of the time, plus a similar observation by Sharly Atkkisson that the money raised from the people is either wasted or siphoned off into the pockets of connected people tells us that the tail is wagging the dog and that situation is unsustainable.

[snip] (Rant Paul)…total ignorance of the role and powers of the Secretary of State, who cannot give or withhold orders to any military staff.

Seven months before Benghazi, Rand Paul proposed cutting the State Department budget by 71%. I’m telling you, this guy is as delusional as Obama but the more he jawbones the media about Hillary Clinton, the closer he gets to the Republican presidential nomination.

The whole process shows that the Republicans are out for HRC’s blood and they’re not worried about the truth on the matter of Benghazi. If they were interested in truth, they would have named a select committee to investigate Fast and Furious, which was much more deadly and stupid than Benghazi; but there was no way to link Hillary Clinton to that.

———-

Absolutely!

I think the budget for the State Department was cut, I don’t know how much, but I remember Hillary begging congress to not do so, it would put lives at risk!

Most of you know I really like Trey, do I think he might have an agenda in trying to pin this tail on Hillary? From some of his past comments, I think that element is definitely there.

Would he like to pin it on the donkey, Baracko…I believe that he is also interested in doing this, to show what a negligent, slacker he is, but I think Trey would love to at least paint Hillary as someone that can’t be trusted, covered up for her boss and doesn’t deserve to be President.

When this is all though, I hope I haven’t lost respect for Trey.

Could he end up being a hero outside of the Rethug party…I doubt it, sadly.

…completely agree as Admin and many of us have been discussing that Hillary must seperate herself from O and get away from him…

I truly hope she does and she is putting together her strategy to be her own candidate because thus far she has been way too concilatory and sorry to say … weak in doing so…and when she makes statements that sound like she is even remotely in agreement with him…it makes me wince…

she has to make a decisive break from him…maybe she has a plan to go in effect after midterms but I wish she would really temper and choose wisely what she says befoehand…

************

A…I can see your point about Lewinsky but i will confess just her name makes me sick…she is such a self centered manipulator…

Admin, I’m not so sure that getting the blue ‘gown’ out, and the Benghazi hearing over this ‘early’ will necessarily help Hillary in 2016.

While I agree that getting the ‘truth’ out to the public is the right thing to do, the new soundbites from the hearings, will be edited to make Hillary looks incompetent and negligent. They are going to be reworked, rerun and that horse is going to be beaten to death, over and over and over until after the 2016 election.

If Bill and Hillary had retired and left politics, no one would care about the goo on the blue ‘gown’, Benghazi would have been swept under the rug like Fast and Furious. All the attacks would be on Obama and HellCare and what a corrupt leader he has been, the attacks would be against the entire Democratic Party.

Either way, the Republican’s will not support their candidate by voting in a block, unless he is a clone of Raygun.

As bad as the Dims are, they are not as splintered and weak as the Republican party is now. Could a candidate come out of the woodwork that would be that perfect conservative candidate? I won’t hold my breath.

Possibly, the Repubs would like to attack Hillary relentlessly now, hoping she will be afraid and decide not to run?

I hope Hillary stands strong, doesn’t protect the slacker she worked for, tells the truth on her part in Benghazi and leaves huge breadcrumps that lead to the front door of the Oval Office.

WBB & Admin, hope you’re right about the Select Committee on Benghazi and Monica Lewinsky (i.e. how it’s actually a good for HRC to have these issues out now, rather than later). You make a good case, but if the past is any indication of how things might play out, when it comes to the Clintons throwing as much mud at them to see what sticks is a tactic the Right, Left, and MSM resort to without fail. Even if nothing sticks, the hope might simply be to create Clinton fatigue. Nevertheless, I’m glad the Select Committee will be digging deeper into Benghazi, but I hope it is done fairly. Let the facts come out and let the chips fall where they may. Given the parameters and constraints placed on HRC as Secretary of State by BO, I think she will come out okay, as you say.

Quite frankly, I’m already exhausted by the 2014 and 2016 elections — and they haven’t even taken place yet!!!! Okay, time to get out to the garden and commune with my plants…maybe that will help brighten up my mood.

let’s not forget that the object of this whole “investigation” for the last 19 months has been to bring down Hillary Clinton, and that is not going to change. object of this whole “investigation” for the last 19 months has been to bring down Hillary Clinton,
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Then you see no merit and no benefit to the country in eliciting answers to the questions this investigation seeks to pursue, questions which have not been answered up to this point because we had five different committees chasing their tails, making speeches to witnesses who evade the questions asked. And the ARB report sheds no light on any of this: the pertinent questions are: i) why did we fail to provide additional security for the embassy given the violence which was occurring in the region and the several requests by the ambassador who was subsequently murdered? ii) where was Obama on the night in question? Did he issue the order to do everything possible to save the troops who were in circumstances of extremis, rather than letting them die on the battlefield? If he gave that order, where is the written record which would have been issued pursuant to that order? iii)where are the CIA witnesses to the event who this administration has scattered across the world to prevent their appearances before congress? iv) was the video story a lie perpetrated for the sole purpose of deceiving the American People on the eve of the 2012 election, or is there some alternative explanation for this which has not yet been disclosed? In my view we need answers to these questions, and if your concerns that the sole reason for this hearing is to get Hillary, then would it not make sense for Democrats to join in a search for the truth and make sure that neither side exploits them for political gain, as Chairman Gowdy is intent on doing from his side of the table. Thinking back to Watergate, the decision of Republicans like Hugh Scott and Howard Baker to look beyond politics to the welfare of the country should be the standard to be applied. This is not Monica gate. There is substance here and the country is entitled to answers. Finally, as to whether getting Hillary is the Republican objective here, I commend to your attention Admin’s comments above at May 10, 2014 at 10:06 am.

The need here is particularly acute for military personnel and their family. Our nation asks them to put their lives on the line to defend us, and they need to know we have their backs. It is an article of faith in the Marine Corps (semper fi) that we do not leave our people behind on the battlefield. Has the Obama Administration changed that rule to read we will not leave our people behind to die on the battlefield UNLESS it benefits Obama politically. I know Obama supporters would accept that revised iteration without blinking an eye. But what about the rest of us. And what about a navy seal, a marine force recon, an army ranger who is headed into hell? Will he stick his neck out in that case?

Tony Stark, the Appeals Court is not the goal. The Appeals panel consists of 2 Obama appointments produced as a result of destroying the filibuster rules in the senate specifically to pack the court. The fun will be in the Supreme Court which will have to reject its earlier finding that ObamaCare is a tax. Either that or the court will have to destroy the Origination Clause.

One other point on Benghazi. If Republicans do as many fear and use the select committee to attack Hillary they will be punished the same way they were punished in the 90s. Gowdy and the Republicans know this. Krauthammer knows this too and we agree with him that the best help Republicans can get is non participation from Pelosi – after all Big Media already is aligned with Obama on this so Republicans have nothing to lose from non-participation other than stumbling blocks.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I don’t think you have to have a committee of seven experts. I think it is good to choose people who will not seek the limelight. The most important thing here is that the legitimacy of the committee will not come from the composition, but will come from its results. So, the Democrats imagine that if they boycott it will delegitimize it and the results will be ignored. Perhaps initially, but all the committee has to do is to discover new facts as we discovered a week and a half ago with the [Ben] Rhodes memo and that you cannot ignore.

So I hope that Pelosi decides that she does not want to be an accomplice to the sideshow and withholds Democratic members. It won’t affect the result, but what it will do, it will allow the Republicans to follow up in their questions in a coherent way without being interrupted by Democrats hurling softballs or making speeches that are ways to essentially exonerate the administration.

I fear all the 24/7 hammering away at Hillary by the media is setting the narrative about her in stone. When it comes to the Clinton’s it does not matter about something “silly” like getting to the bottom of the investigation to find out the actual truth. The narrative set by the Republicans is the one people remember. My fear also is that by the time we have had all this hammering away at her, the die will be cast and no amount of truth coming out about Hillary’s role in anything will matter.

When I think of all the Ken Starr days and all the vast right wing conspiracy behavior against Bill and Hillary in the past, and make no mistake it surely was and Hillary was absolutely right…when I think of all the things done to them, I find it very easy to despise Republicans and not trust any of them. The problem is that Democrats of the BO type are in the same category for me.

I cannot for get what has been done to the Clintons starting in 1992 and especially in 2008…never.

Bill Maher actually gets it with his final New Rule this week. And what is scary is the rather tepid initial response to it from the audience. Yes, you will have to suffer through the first few, but the last one really hit home as far as I am concerned.

admin
May 10, 2014 at 7:00 pm
Tony Stark, the Appeals Court is not the goal. The Appeals panel consists of 2 Obama appointments produced as a result of destroying the filibuster rules in the senate specifically to pack the court. The fun will be in the Supreme Court which will have to reject its earlier finding that ObamaCare is a tax. Either that or the court will have to destroy the Origination Clause.
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They are not judges. They lack the judicial temperament and neutrality that the judicial role calls for. What then are they? Simple: they are rabid ideologues with as much mental give and take as a scottish terrier watching a rat hole. This kind of pond scum gets though the legislative screen when the filibuster rule is extinguished. But in the end, that rule which was so gladly adopted by that Freddy Kreuger Reid when he was majority leader will come back to haunt him and his fellow travelers after the 2014 election. Simply put, they will rue the day.

Correction: oh, yes, I forgot to add, these rabid ideologues lack a fundamental appreciation for the Constitution, which is the foundation for our government and their right to hold judicial office. That same document which gives them their power also states that tax legislation, which Roberts has found Obamacare to be, must originate in the House. And because Obamacare did not originate in the House, it is unconstitutional. These ideologues are attempting to gut the Constitution. Time will tell whether a majority of the Supreme Court will uphold their ultra vires actions.

trixta
May 10, 2014 at 5:07 pm
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Just to be clear on what I am saying in re. Lewinsky.

I am not saying that people like Ron Paul will not continue to bring this issue up, and attempt to make political hay out of it. Simply put, they will.

What I am saying is this: when they do so, they will not be listened to by independent voters who will decide the 2016 election. Because it is being brought up now, by election time they will say to Paul enough already, and they will punish him when and if he persists.

Timing is everything, and it puts me in mind of something Wigmore said about the difference between direct and cross examination. Direct examination is like gunpowder–it does its task along the appointed line; whereas, cross examination is like dynamite–it rends in all directions. Likewise vetting–re-vetting the issue now ensures that it will burn out like gunpowder well before the 2016 election.

S
May 11, 2014 at 12:22 am
Richard Benedetto:
————
He is a good man. I quoted him extensively in one of the papers I wrote over the past few years–dealing with the abdication of journalism by big media. His comments related to the White House press corps–he was part of that crowd once, for USA Today if memory serves. He condemned them for their cowardice and unctuous behavior.

I seriously doubt that Ron Paul will get very far in the Republican primary. Lately he has come out in favor of amnesty and no voter ID. With the former, he hopes to appeal to hispanics, and through the latter he hopes to appeal to blacks. In both cases the reaction has been no sale. On the other hand, these anti Republican, anti the rule of law positions he has adopted, plus his cozying up to establishment money men, leaves the base wondering what this guy stands for, other than re-litigating Monicagate to a limited audience. Ted Cruz needs to step forward, like Reagan did in 1976, to get his name out there and four years later, he will win. Paul, on the other hand, is as much of a non-starter as java the hut aka the Jersey bounce.

Messiahs have a language all their own. Sometimes, the words are given to them by lowly speechwriters, whereas at other time they operate on automatic pilot and they say the darn’est things. And when this occurs, we can only hope that there are scribes present to record these spontaneous outburst so posterity can have them. One case in point was the time when in the face of a mountain of incriminating evidence, big media beloved Messiah Obama told us that there was not a “smidgeon” of evidence that the IRS had acted illegally, ergo the investigation conducted by the House Oversight Committee was nothing more than a witch hunt for Learner. When I heard that word, I wondered what is he talking about. You don’t really need to know the exact meaning, because the overall context left no doubt that the Liar In Chief was up to his old tricks, for which big media has praised him to no end, often. Still, I had to ask, is he speaking in Tongues, or did he stay up too late smoking choom and reading Harry Potter, or what the fuck was he talking about. Rather than waste my time dwelling on his bullshit, I filed away in the subconscious, and over the course of the next several days, the answer came to me out of the blue. No, he was not speaking in tongues, nor did he invent a new word to bamboozle the fools who voted for him and hang on his every word. I am convinced to a moral certainty that he meant to say there is not a “scintilla” of evidence, but it came out smidgeon. Hearing this word, the denizons of big media swooned and they contacted the Oxford dictionary to make sure this word is included in their next edition, even though the exact meaning of the word smidegon is ambiguous and the only thing the experts can agree on is it is the opposite of pigeon. Pigeons fall under another section of the dictionary and the example used is an Obama voter. Another synonym is rube, or just fell off the turn-up truck.

I seriously doubt that Ron Paul will get very far in the Republican primary. Lately he has come out in favor of amnesty and no voter ID. With the former, he hopes to appeal to hispanics, and through the latter he hopes to appeal to blacks. In both cases the reaction has been no sale.
—————-
Obviously, he needs a fall-back strategy of some sort. Perhaps Al Jolsen has the answer. The question is, can Ron Paul dance and carry a tune. And, even if they still said no, sell your wares to white people, it would at least prove that he did reach out, sought a broader tent, and is by no stretch of the imagination, racist. Big media would shower him with praise for making a total fool of himself and undermining his party, in the grand tradition of John McNutt from Arizona.

Is Obama is a jinx upon America? The answer is an unequivocal yes. An apologist would argue that the forces of national decline and death are typical of what happens to all civilizations throughout history, they preceded his tenure, ergo it is unfair to blame him. That is pure sophistry. The question is not whether these forces have been in play for some time. The question is first, has he made them worse, and second what if anything has he done to arrest them. The answer is that far from arresting them, he has done everything possible, and I mean everything to destroy this nation. Simply put, Obama is one Satanic son of a bitch. and I shall not scruple to say that only a traitor would defend him at this point. And the proof? Well, it is right here:
———————————

Obama is a Jinx on America

By Wayne Allyn Root
·

Have you heard? China is set to pass America as the world’s #1 economy. THIS YEAR.

For many years now we’ve been told this day of reckoning was years, if not decades away. We always knew it would come someday. But under the leadership and economic policies of Obama, it’s suddenly jumped way ahead of all previous projections.

What an embarrassment. The USA has had the unchallenged #1 economy in world since 1872 (when we passed the United Kingdom). 1872. Eighteen hundred and seventy two. Let that sink in for a while.

142 years of world dominance erased in only six years under one man’s leadership.

142 years of world dominance erased in only six years under one man’s leadership.

But wait. As an infomercial pitchman might say, “There’s much more.”

The same thing happening to the economy is happening to the American quality of life. Under Obama, for the first time in history our middle class isn’t #1 in the world. Canada’s middle class is now number one. And the entire rest of the world is catching up fast. Soon we’ll be #10, then #20. How low can we go?

The same thing is happening to entrepreneurs and small business. For the first time in history businesses in America are being destroyed faster than they are starting. Amazing.

– Under Obama there are now more food stamp recipients than the number of women working full-time in America.

– Under Obama the average full-time male employee now earns less (adjusted for inflation) than 40 years ago.

– Under Obama there are now 70% more Americans collecting entitlement checks than working in the private sector (148 million “takers” vs. 86 million “makers”). This isn’t a conservative opinion. It’s a fact provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.

– Under Obama the number of working-age Americans not in the labor force is at all-time highs.

– Under Obama the workplace participation rate of men is the lowest in history.

– Under Obama the workforce participation rate of women is the lowest on record.

– Under Obama the workforce participation rate for black Americans is at the lowest level ever recorded.

– Over 800,000 people dropped out of the workforce last month. That’s almost one million Americans who have given up…in a month.

Because millions of the unemployed have given up looking for work, the unemployment rate has dropped to 6.3%. Obama calls that’s good news. Heck at this rate the whole nation might give up looking for a job by the time Obama leaves office…and he’ll report we have reached full employment.

One man — Obama — has done that much damage. So forget the debate over whether Obama is a radical Marxist intent on the destruction of capitalism and America; or whether he’s an inexperienced, incompetent, economically-ignorant megalomaniac.

Does it really matter?

Obama is like the old joke about a dying man lying in the hospital with his wife of 50 years:

Murray is lying on his death bed in a hospital room. His wife Ida sits by his side.

Murray says, “Ida you’ve always been by my side.”

“You were there when I flunked out of college…

You were there when I was fired from my first job…

You were there when I opened a business and it failed.

You were there when I filed for bankruptcy…

You were there when I was paralyzed in the car crash…

Now you’re here by my side as I lay dying of cancer….

I’ve given this a lot of thought…

Ida, darling…You’re a jinx. Get the hell out of my hospital room!”

At some point you just have to conclude that Obama is our jinx. It doesn’t matter if it’s on purpose, or by mistake. The man is ruining our lives, our economy, our jobs, and most importantly, our children’s future.

And by the way, it isn’t just America he’s brought bad luck to. Obama hasn’t exactly been a good luck charm for the people of the European Union, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea or Ukraine either.

Obama is quite simply a jinx. Bad news. A walking disaster.

Except for China and Russia. Those two evil empires suddenly turned BFF (best friends forever) are thriving. All of our losses appear to be their gains.

Remember when Obama leaned over and whispered to the president of Russia that after his re-election he’d have “more flexibility” to help Putin out. Don’t look now, but it’s happening exactly as Obama whispered. I’m just surprised he didn’t whisper in Russian.

It seems every country in the world has been badly damaged by the policies of Obama…except Russia and China. Our decline is their shining moment.

Suddenly the world is Putin’s oyster.

Suddenly our military is a feckless joke, incapable of stopping Russia’s expansion plans.

I’m glad to see that my post at May 9, 2014 at 11:22 am drew some blood, including mine.

As I’m more scientist than politician, and also living outside the US, I tend to bow to admin’s analyses of the “coarse political” realities of various situations, and to wbboei’s too. As hope springs eternal, I hope they’re right. But I don’t think they are.

The idea that “there are tons of investigations the Republicans could have had to hurt Hillary,” and that therefore they’re not out to do so, is unconvincing to say the least. None of the possibilities mentioned by admin at May 10, 10:06 am, implicate Hillary directly or even indirectly: She was part of the administration, yes; but she wasn’t there most of the time, the scandals were in other departments and she certainly did not claim responsibility for any of them, as she did for Benghazi. She was therefore not in line to be subpoenaed for any of these other things. And, predictably, none of those other things were investigated.

admin’s second point, that the timing of the select committee is best for HRC now, before the 2014 elections, actually underscores the fact that the decision to appoint a select committee was not made to find out the essential truths and answer the many basic questions we have about this matter (some, but certainly not all, of which are posed once again by wbboei at May 10 at 5:27 pm), but is aimed only at exposing the cover-up, in which HRC participated for two days.

That is, the Republicans – and everyone else – already know there was a cover-up, and why (i.e., to protect Obama in the run-up to the election); but I contend that the only reason they have been harping on Benghazi for 19 months and now want a select committee is because HRC participated in that cover-up.

I say this because the decision to name a select committee was made in the immediate aftermath of the Rhodes memo bombshell, which is proof positive of an intentional cover-up. None of the other questions we have were considered important enough, over these last 19 months, to merit a select committee. To emphasize this fact, let me add my own questions to those of wbboei at May 10 at 5:27 pm:

(i) “Why was security at Benghazi scaled down in the weeks before 9/11/12?”

(ii) “Why did Stevens himself repeatedly turn down reinforcement proposals for Benghazi?” as emerges from the recent Senate report.

(iii) Another security-related question stemming from my contracts with CIA: Typically, the State Department has very little in the way of security staff. Embassy security comes from (a) DoD, (b) CIA, and mainly from (iii) local (i.e. Libyan in this case) police and security staff. So, knowing this, the question is, “Wasn’t the security situation in this distant outpost actually adequate as it was?” In which case, the to-do about low security at Benghazi is all Monday-morning quarterbacking.

(iv) “Why did Stevens go to Benghazi with the Turkish ambassador?” What business did either of them, no less both of them, have in an outpost 400 miles from their own embassies? There was speculation of a gun-running operation through Turkey to the Syrian rebels. Why hasn’t this lead been followed up? Hillary should have an answer to that and it would blow the whole thing sky-high: Iran-Contra all over again; Fast and Furious all over again.

(v) “Who was responsible for not sending in reinforcements?” If Obama is to be believed, he told Panetta and the Chief of Staff to “do everything they needed to do to protect our people” but that leaves Panetta on the hook for not doing anything.

The Republicans are in a tizzy about the cover-up and they’re going to hang it around HRC’s neck if they can. If they can’t, they’ll find something else, in one of the above questions. Every one of these questions (except the last) can be turned against her, no matter what the truth of the matter is and no matter what HRC has to say about them.

I feel strongly that the attitude of “let the truth be known” is naïve in politics. Leave truth to scientists; politicians are in it for the sound bites and spin.

The Republicans are in a tizzy about the cover-up and they’re going to hang it around HRC’s neck if they can. If they can’t, they’ll find something else, in one of the above questions. Every one of these questions (except the last) can be turned against her, no matter what the truth of the matter is and no matter what HRC has to say about them.
I feel strongly that the attitude of “let the truth be known” is naïve in politics. Leave truth to scientists; politicians are in it for the sound bites and spin.
——————–
As a scientist, I am sure you realize that there is politics in science as well. The competition for money fame and power drives that competition. The founding fathers and mothers (I am thinking of Dolly Madison for example) understood that politics is part and parcel of the human condition, and rather than engaging in pc, speech codes and re education camps to exorcise it from human nature which are the favorite tools of left wing scum, they concluded that the key to liberty was to pit ambitious people and ambitious groups against each so that no one group could attain absolute power. This can be seen in Madison’s comments in Federalist 51, and in the separation of powers which lies at the heart of the Constitution and is therefore the target of Satan Obama and his Saracen hordes. I happen to be reading a book on the Plantagenets who ruled England and produced such luminaries as Henry II, Elanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionhearted who fought bravely against the Muslims, as well as such villains as King John, who bankrupted his people, squandored England power and ran a tyrannical and oppressive government. In many respects, John was therefore the spitting image of Obama, on the inside. But it all gets back to politics, and incest. I think Hillary can withstand the process, and come out better off, but that will not happen if she and her party opt for obstructionism. Again, and I see that Betanadi has said the same thing, the template already exists, they do not need to invent it. The democrats need to take what happened in Benghazi as serious, and make a commitment to get to the bottom of it, like Hugh Scott and Howard Baker did. Where the welfare of the nation is concerned, as it is here for a myriad of reasons, partisanship should be set aside, both parties should agree to that ground rule, public hearings should be rare and the press should be held at arms length pending completion. A cynic would say this is impossible, therefore we should not have accountability for the rich and powerful. They may be right, but man’s reach must always exceed his grasp or what is a heaven for. And even if we try and fail, that is far better than not trying at all. At this point in our history, there are irreconcilable differences between the left and the right in this county, and that is grounds for divorce. The only way to change that dynamic is to work together for the good of the nation, and that will never happen if one party takes a pass on sorting out this tragedy. I have no illusions however. I know that with rare exceptions, big media will continue to fall on its sword until we stop listening to them altogether.

China is doing so well because it now has a government that knows how to manage its economy and has the power to do so. There are still many pockets of poverty, and the income and wealth per capita is well below that of the US or Europe; but, in time, these other measures will also show that China is on the right track. This has, I strongly believe, nothing to do with the economic decline of the United States. In fact, China and many other countries are suffering from the sluggish American economy.

Russia, on the other hand, is not tied to the American economy but rather to that of western Europe and many other countries. Its rise is therefore unrelated to the American economy altogether. Its political rise, though, is very much due to the power vacuum left by the US and its feeble president.

wbboei May 11, 2014 at 1:46 am
… Messiah Obama told us that there was not a “smidgeon” of evidence that the IRS had acted illegally…. I wondered what he was talking about….

LMAO – another very funny post, with a good turn of “pigeon” for believers in the Messiah….

However, “smidgen” is indeed a word and it was not misused in the Messiah’s lie. Here is what my dictionary says of it, after the etymological stuff:

smidgen (alternative spelling smidgeon)

A very small quantity or amount.

Usage: Would you like some more cake? — I’ll have a smidgen.
Move it a smidgen to the right.

Some cookbooks and manufacturers of kitchen measurement sets have attempted to define a smidgen for recipes. Anything between 1/25th and 1/48th of a teaspoon may be found, 1/32nd being perhaps the most commonly used. Other commonly used measures for small amounts include tad, dash, pinch, and drop. There seems to be some consensus of tad being the largest in this set and smidgen being larger than a drop but smaller than a pinch.

Krauthammer: New Benghazi Committee Hard for Dems to Ignore
Friday, 09 May 2014 10:29 AM
A fair and impartial House Benghazi probe will undermine Democrats’ efforts to paint the hearings as an election-year stunt by making the truth of the Obama administration’s conduct on Sept. 11, 2012, “impossible to ignore,” Charles Krauthammer wrote in The Washington Post.

The former prosecutor chairing the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, must steer the panel away from speculation and focus on uncovering facts behind the White House’s response to the assault that killed four Americans, the columnist wrote.

Urgent: Do You Think There is a Cover-up on Benghazi? Vote Now in Urgent Poll

“Questions only, no speechifying,” Krauthammer wrote. “Every sentence by every GOP committee member must end with a question mark. Should any committee Republican instead make a declarative statement ending in a period, the chairman should immediately, by button, deliver an electric shock through the violator’s seat.”

With some Democrats considering a boycott of the hearings, and the “Obama-protective media,” Krauthammer argued that even the most fair-minded investigation poses political risks for Republicans.

“Going into the 2014 election, they stand to benefit from the major issues — Obamacare, the economy, chronic unemployment — from which Benghazi hearings can only distract,” he wrote. “Worse, if botched like previous hearings on the matter, these hearings could backfire against the GOP, as did the 1998 Clinton impeachment proceedings.”

But the White House’s efforts to conceal security and intelligence failings demand a serious investigation, the columnist opined.

Krauthammer cited the email that took eight months and a court order to uncover: Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes urging then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to blame the violence on spontaneous rage over an inflammatory anti-Islam video.

“We’ve already seen what a single piece of new evidence can do in reviving interest in a story that many (including me) thought the administration had successfully stonewalled,” he wrote.

“As a scientist, I am sure you realize that there is politics in science as well.”

Sure, exemplified nowadays by the global warming “debate” and its political repercussions. And there are plenty of other examples. But I don’t see the relevance of this point. At any rate, you give a pretty good description of how objective debate would function in the political environment:

Where the welfare of the nation is concerned, as it is here for a myriad of reasons, partisanship should be set aside, both parties should agree to that ground rule, public hearings should be rare and the press should be held at arms length pending completion. A cynic would say this is impossible, therefore we should not have accountability for the rich and powerful.

First of all, I disagree that the nation’s welfare is at stake, at this point in time, as to whether or not there was a cover-up of Benghazi, and why. At the most, one could claim that the nation would have been better off if there had never been a cover-up. Obama might have been voted out of office. But I don’t see the point of hammering it into the public conscious now.

Where the nation’s welfare is concerned now, and even at the time of HRC’s first interrogation, was “What do we have to do to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again?” – which was the point that HRC was trying to make (even before Benghazi), and which Congress (i.e. the Republicans, who are calling the shots) simply do not want to address. As I said, Rand Paul proposed cutting the State Department budget by 71%, seven months before Benghazi, and that has simply been the Republicans’ attitude all along. The Republicans don’t care about the nation’s welfare. They want to score political points and clear HRC out of the field going forward.

Secondly, in the part of your statement that I underscored above, you say how things should be but I insist on saying how things are. Last month, I accused you of being cynical when you derided “objective debate” in favor of greed and fear in politics, and now you are accusing me of being cynical because I am saying that politicians don’t follow your idealistic path of objective debate.

I think the key to our understanding on this subject is this: The select committee should operate behind closed doors. That would keep “the press at arm’s length pending completion,” as we both wish. I just don’t think that’s going to happen.

Here’s another well-analyzed, well-written and optimistic piece that will comfort those hoping for Hillary 2016. It’s from Robert Shrum at The Daily Beast.
*****

No One’s Going to Challenge Hillary Clinton

Ignore the talk about purity tests, progressive cred, and skipping to a post-presidency status. Clinton won’t be denied this time—and she’s going to make history.

The non-race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, all but unprecedented in non-incumbent contests, is confounding to journalists and pundits, to the quoteratti whose words sustain their output, and to the partisan spinners whose mission is to bend the arc of the story. But the political cycle—-and the 24-hour news cycle—has its own relentless rhythms. If you’re one of the boys, and now girls, on the bus, even if it hasn’t rolled into Iowa yet, it’s hard to cover a foregone conclusion. If you’re a Republican, then just maybe Hillary Clinton, the certain nominee if she runs, can be damaged or deterred.

If you’re on the left, maybe you can nudge her ideologically. Or you can just come up with a fresh take, attention-getting and perhaps friendly, even if it’s implausible and unpersuasive, an unavailing piece of unsolicited advice.

All this will happen all the way until Hillary announces—and will mutate into variant strains until the day she’s inaugurated.

One recurrent meme is that she isn’t liberal enough to prevail in the primaries—a wish dressed up as analysis or a weirdly poll-uninformed argument. (I won’t even link to the relevant surveys here; in virtually all of them, she’s the choice of two-thirds of Democrats and more.)

A favorite GOP pollster, Scott Rasmussen, typifies the wishing on the right: “The party is leaving [Hillary Clinton] behind as it becomes more liberal.” There is “reason to believe that she will not be the… nominee in 2016.” The analysis may not be hardheaded, and certainly isn’t based on hard facts. Instead it seems desperately hopeful on the part of Republicans who can read the bottom lines of general-election polls—and know that despite their Benghazi-bashing of Hillary, she leads every conceivable Republican nominee, nationally and in battleground states, by generally daunting margins. She beats Jeb Bush by 8 points in Florida, and the state’s Sen. Marco Rubio by 12.

Clinton’s presumed ideological shortcomings have also been cited, and recited, by a number of progressives who would rather be further left then elect a president. Last November, The New Republic trumpeted Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “the probable face of the [anti-Hillary] insurgency“ and ventured that “the populists are likely to win.”

Although Warren has signed a letter urging Clinton to run, the notion that she or someone else on the left could challenge the former Secretary of State, and maybe prevail, persists in journalistic musings as well as the liberal blogosphere. That someone, writes one progressive, could and should be independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: “Clinton could otherwise coast [to victory] on centrist stances.“ Or what about “other liberal and populist prospects,“ The Nation asks, “such as Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer“?

No one on the list, even Elizabeth Warren, matches the pre-2008 stature of Barack Obama; he hardly came out of nowhere to confront and confound Clinton. He was a soaring star from the moment he finished his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Moreover, Hillary’s support in the polling two years before she ran the last time was at 33 percent, just about half of what her lead is today. And in second place, at 15 percent, was… Obama.

It’s not just that her position is now so formidable; the prospect or call for an ideologically pure challenger is based on a flawed premise. Hillary won’t be a purist, but she will run as a progressive.

First, she actually is—with her politics sensibly tempered by pragmatism—but so were FDR and JFK’s. Second, she’s smart—and she knows that it would be a mistake to create an opening for a potential primary opponent. She did that in 2008 by campaigning initially as a candidate of restoration, not change—and by neglecting to organize in caucus states. She won’t misread the Democratic landscape again.

Last week, Clinton—that is, Bill Clinton—sent an unmistakable signal about the direction of his wife’s 2016 race in a speech at Georgetown University reasserting his own progressive bona fides. He is plainly aware of, and annoyed by, a critique of Hillary that, as Rasmussen put it, is reinforced by a purported “repudiation” from the party’s rising populist forces of Clinton’s “more centrist approach.” So Bill’s claim to have been an agent of economic justice reflects not only a determination to secure his own past, but to safeguard the Clinton future.

It also reflects reality, even if Tim Noah is right that the former president overstated his case. Clinton pointed to his 1992 slogan: “Put People First.“ He could have quoted from the strategy memos catalogued in the Newsweek book Quest for the Presidency 1992. On March 15th of that year, Paul Begala, James Carville, and George Stephanopoulos described the campaign’s fundamental message: We are running against those who care “only” about “corporations,” who “think we need another across-the-board capital gains tax cut.” Or look at the pollster Stan Greenberg’s June 18th distillation of the Clinton argument: “America is in trouble because government is failing ordinary people and stacking the deck in favor of the rich.” And then there was a phrase that remarkably pre-figures today’s politics: “Government is delivering for the top 1%.”

Yes, Bill Clinton was “a different kind of Democrat”—for welfare reform and the death penalty, willing, even eager, to criticize the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Yes, as president, he would sign the Defense of Marriage Act, now declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and disclaimed even before that by Clinton himself. And yes, in 1996, he would temper his rhetoric, triangulating his path to reelection.

But results count, too; indeed they count far more. And in terms of fairness, a word he studiously avoided in his time of triangulation, Clinton’s results were impressive and progressive—even though Bush II would reverse many of the achievements while converting the Clinton surplus into record deficits.

As Clinton explained at Georgetown, during his tenure, income growth was greater for the poorest than the wealthiest fifth of Americans. Nearly 8 million people were lifted out of poverty, compared to just 77,000 under Ronald Reagan. Clinton quadrupled the earned income tax credit. He presided over the preternatural creation of 30 million new jobs—and the sharpest rise in median incomes in a generation.

There were less favorable results too. The top 1% did almost as well as in the Reagan years. And Clinton did sign a capital-gains tax cut; as he said, it was part of a deal with the GOP Congress that yielded major budget increases for education and the passage of CHIP—the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Was Clinton being defensive? Shrewdly so. There is no political leader in memory so capable of turning the defensive into a potent offense.

Remember his master class of the speech on the Obama record at the 2012 Democratic Convention. He was clearing the decks for the president who had defeated Hillary in the 2008 primaries. Now he is clearing the decks for her. So be ready for Hillary as a fighter for economic fairness in 2016—and for reverberations of the 1992 Clinton message.

There was another piece of Hillary commentary this week which probably won’t become a meme. Tina Brown, the former editor in chief of The Daily Beast, penned a column here advising Hillary to go straight to a kind of “post-presidency” and skip the intermediate unpleasantness of campaigning, governing, and enduring “the chronic negativity of the ladies and gentlemen of the press.”

The column was original, ingenious, arresting—and wrong. Here’s why. Brown hymned the glories of the post-presidency as a “win-win” uniquely available to Hillary even if she never commands the Oval Office. You can get “money, Nobels… celebrity for any cause or hobbyhorse….”

But this isn’t just about Hillary Clinton; what’s at stake is the future of the country. Brown preemptively replied by citing the “gridlock“ that dooms a president to “paltry results” and personal disappointment.

Well, there was nothing paltry about Obamacare or rescuing the country from an oncoming depression. There is nothing paltry about averting a Republican victory that could deprive tens of millions of health coverage—and that is a cause, a hobbyhorse if you will, about which Hillary Clinton deeply cares. There is nothing paltry about fighting the economic inequality of massive tax cuts at the top—or in picking the next round of Supreme Court justices who will determine, perhaps for the next half century, the future of civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights.

Of course, there are other Democrats who could carry the standard in 2016. Thus Maureen Dowd picked up Brown’s point and amplified it, admonishing President Obama for “encourag[ing] the view of Hillary as the presumptive nominee over his unfailingly loyal vice president, Joe Biden.”

Biden would be the clear favorite if Hillary didn’t run. But Barack Obama is just recognizing the realities. This Clinton won’t be denied by her own party on the basis of a purist, parsed out, and phony test of her progressive credentials. Hillary won’t walk away from history; she will run to make history. She’s not retiring to be an ersatz ex-president before she becomes the next president of the United States.

jeswezey
May 11, 2014 at 12:00 pm
—————
There are principles at stake here that transcend politics. Obviously, the Republican solution is to elect Republicans and the Democrat solution is to elect Democrats. What else would you expect? But you seem to assume that partisanship precludes all other possibilities, including what we can learn, and yes accountability for what occurred. You may be willing to give politicians a blank check, but I am not. They make promises in order to get elected, and if they fail to fulfill those promises then there should be consequences. And if, in the course of breaching those promises, they harm the nation retroactively or prospectively, then we should not dismiss those who seek to hold them accountable merely because they are partisans. Remember what I said about Hamilton. He did not assume that men were angels, on the contrary he knew what they are. And knowing that, he decided that the only way we have any chance of tyranny and oppression is if we structure the system in such a way as to pit adversary against adversary in a contest where the borders of competition and conflict are delineated, and defections are punished. Gowdy says the main difference between the prosecutors role which he filled admirably and effectively for Bill Clinton for 16 years is different than the morals of the marketplace that we see in politics. But as chairman he has a chance to show the world that our system CAN work as the framers intended, and if he can get a little help from the other side of the aisle, then who knows, it might just work. And if it did work, then perhaps we could begin to mend the irreconcilable differences that cripple our current system.

No One’s Going to Challenge Hillary Clinton
—————-
That has been my view all along. And the reason is equally clear. It is not that democrats love Hillary. In 2008, that notion was fully repudiated. Nor is the reason that she submitted to their will, and did not challenge the Liar in Chief at the convention. There is only one reason they support her, and that is because they are convinced that she will carry on the crap that was initiated by Soros under Obama, namely, the emergence of a minority dominated party, expansion of government, abdication of national sovereignty, open borders and destroying the middle class. That is what these people believe in, even though they are hard pressed to admit it. If I believed Hillary had changed from what I witnessed and believed about her in 2008, then I would be hardpressed to support her. Unlike most democrats and establishment Republicans, I think she cares about the country, and if you care about the country, then you must throw Soros under the bus at some point, because he is bent on destroying this country in order to achieve his perverse vision and to line his pockets with the blood and treasure of the American People, much like he lined his pockets with the personal effects of jews bound for death camps in war torn Hungary seventy years ago. That leopard will never change his spots. He is the destroyer of worlds. That is not an opinion, it is a hard fact. All you need to do is familiarize yourself with his resume and you will see that no other conclusion is possible.

A favorite GOP pollster, Scott Rasmussen, typifies the wishing on the right
———————–
Shrum plays fast and loose with the truth in that article. One example is the passage quoted above. The Rassmussen firm is a GOP pollster? Give me a break. Is he really that stupid? Ever since Scott left that polling firm and Soros bought into it, it has been more friendly to Obama than any other poll in the country.

Gowdy, a former prosecutor, also dismissed the notion that he wants Democrats to boycott joining the committee.

“How does it benefit me when from Day One if they’re excluded?” he asked. “I want this to transcend politics.”

“I want this to transcend politics.”
– Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-SC

The GOP-controlled House voted Thursday to form a so-called congressional “select” committee, which gives members such special powers as the authority to subpoena documents and to centralize the investigations into the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed.

Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., told Fox his party will “absolutely” participate in the committee’s investigation “if it’s a fair-and-balanced process.”

“We’ve always said we’re ready to participate,” he continued. “We have a responsibility.”

Critics of the committee also say it was formed so Republicans can continue hammering on the two-year-old issue through the 2014 and 2016 election cycle.

Gowdy also attempted to put an end to both parties accusing each of trying to raise money off the deadly terror attacks, or at least stop Republicans.

“I said I will never — and have never — sent out any funds literature trying to raise money in the grief and the tragedy of four dead Americans and I have asked my colleagues to follow suit,” he said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee launched a website last week called BenghaziWatchdogs.com, which asks supporters for donations.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used its website to blast the NRCC for apparently trying to use the site to fundraising off Benghazi, saying it is “despicable and insulting and has no place in the national conversation.” However, the post Thursday was near a standing homepage “Contribute Now” button.

And Gowdy on Sunday accused Democrats of having “selective amnesia” because they have used tragedies to raise money.

“They raised money on Sandy Hook, they raised money on Katrina, they raised money on Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “It would be helpful if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle did not have selective amnesia when it comes to what’s appropriate to raise money off of.”

Here’s a 40-minute video with HRC talking all the time. Her depth of awareness of the social and economic challenges facing the US and the world, and women and girls in particular, comes across very strongly. She talks knowledgeably about Boko Haram.

But wouldn’t you know it, the moderator found a clever way to ask her about 2016, and that’s what made the headline.

I recommend the 40-minute listen. It’s like I was saying last week, a “leader” is different from a “representative” in that the leader will go out and reason with the public and bring them over to her side. You’ll see Hillary hard at work leading the audience.

Here’s an article of “Western Journalism” that shows where the talk about Benghazi is all about Hillary Clinton, trying to pin as much opprobrium as possible on her under the headline Could This Mean The “Butcher Of Benghazi” Hillary Clinton Is Headed To Prison?

Hillary Clinton, known as the “Butcher of Benghazi” after the release of the scathing report “Breach of Duty: Hillary Clinton and Catastrophic Failure in Benghazi,” refused dozens of requests for additional security at the Benghazi consulate.

The report also reveals that Clinton held back a special forces State Department Foreign Emergency Support Team on the night of September 11, 2012—essentially giving a stand down order—leaving Islamic radicals to butcher Chris Stevens, Shawn Smith, Ty Woods, and Glen Doherty.
….

But there’s a new sheriff in town: “Benghazi Bulldog” Trey Gowdy, appointed to head the Select Committee on Benghazi. And this Sheriff is going after Clinton and Obama with guns blazing!

….

We can only hope…

The article is unsigned but the organ seems to be ultra-conservative, covering Ann Coulter and Ted Cruz favorably coupled with disparaging articles about Harry Reid.

Admin: I did a little research on the people Boehner has appointed to the Republican side of the select committee on Bengazi. It is a brain trust, with two political caveats. Here is my cursory subjective assessment of each of them.
—————————-
1. TREY GOWDY (R-SC)

Following law school, he clerked for the late John P. Gardner on the South Carolina Court of Appeals and United States District Court Judge Ross Anderson. He then went into private practice before becoming a federal prosecutor in April 1994. He was awarded the Postal Inspector’s Award for the successful prosecution of J. Mark Allen, one of “America’s Most Wanted” suspects.

In February 2000, he left the United States Attorney’s Office to run for 7th Circuit Solicitor. He defeated incumbent Solicitor Holman Gossett[5] in the Republican primary. No other party even put up a candidate, ensuring his election in November. He was reelected in 2004 and 2008, both times unopposed. During his tenure, he appeared on “Forensic Files” twice, as well as Dateline NBC and SCETV.[6] He prosecuted the full gamut of criminal cases including 7 death penalty cases.

When the state faced a budget crunch that forced many employees to go on unpaid furloughs, Gowdy funneled part of his campaign account into the solicitor’s budget so his staff could keep working.[7]

COMMENT: WORLD CLASS: media savy prosecutor with an instinct for fairness, a sense of the dramatic and a mind like a steel trap. The best person for the job. (Note: when the going gets tough Boehner is certain to waffle, therefore Trey will need to watch his back during the course of this investigation. Boehner is a deal maker, and it is not unlikely that he will go around Trey and seek to make some kind of deal with Obama.)

2. SUSAN BROOKS (R-IN)

In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed her as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. She earned an advisory-leadership role with two U.S. Attorneys General. She focused on mortgage fraud, gun violence, drug trafficking, gangs, child exploitation, and identity theft.

In her first few weeks in office, she charged Dr. Randolph Lievertz of Indianapolis with illegally prescribing OxyContin. She said he was by far the biggest prescriber of that drug under Indiana’s Medicaid program. In 2000, he prescribed six times more than the amount of Indiana’s second highest prescriber of Oxy.[8]

She earned the Who’s Who in Law in 2002, Super Lawyer from 2004-2008, and Indiana Lawyer Leadership in 2006.

COMMENT: SUPERB CHOICE: Chief law enforcement officer in the largest judicial district in Indiana, with an exemplary record.

3. MIKE POMPEO (R-KS)

Pompeo attended the U.S. Military Academy where he majored in Mechanical Engineering, graduating first in his class in 1986 and subsequently serving in the Regular Army as an Armor Branch cavalry officer from 1986 to 1991.[3] He subsequently graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He then worked as a lawyer for Williams & Connolly.[4]

COMMENT: SUPERB CHOICE: West Point (first in his class!), Harvard Law Review, Williams and Connolly (the top criminal law firm in Washington). He is an orderly, logical thinker, who will get to the truth.

4.JIM JORDAN (R-OH)

Jordan was born and raised in Champaign County, Ohio and attended Graham High School, graduating in 1982. While at Graham, he was a four-time state wrestling champion with a career record of 150-1. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1986, obtaining his bachelor’s degree in economics. Jordan was a two-timeNCAA Division I wrestling champion. In the 1985 NCAA championship match, Jordan defeated future two-time Olympic gold medalist and four-time world champion John Smith.[1] He later earned a master’s degree in education from the Ohio State University in Columbus, and in 2001 obtained his law degree from Capital University, also in Columbus. Before entering politics, he was an assistant wrestling coach with the Ohio State University wrestling program.

COMMENT: SUPERB CHOICE: I have seen him in action. He is a bulldog. And do not assume that just because he is a wrestling coach that he is another Dennis Hassert/

5. MARTHA ROBY (R-AL)

Roby was born in Montgomery, Alabama and attended New York University, where she received a bachelor of music degree. She then entered the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, receiving her J.D. in 2001. She is the daughter of Joel F. Dubina, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

COMMENT: GOOD CHOICE: Look at who her father is.

5. PETER ROSKAM (R-IL

He is a Boehner guy, chief deputy whip of the 112th Congress, fourth in leadership behind Cantor, McCarthy, McMorris Rogers. On July 26, 2013, the House Committee on Ethics released a public statement that Roskam was under investigation by Committee regarding allegations of a 2011 trip to Taiwan with his wife that was improperly financed by the Taiwanese government.

COMMENT: QUESTIONABLE CHOICE: the ethics complaint is a cloud over his head, his whip position means he is a political animal, and his association with Boehner makes me nervous. Remember, Boehner never wanted to convene a select committee, but the discovery of the Rhodes memo forced his hand. If I were Gowdy, I would watch this guy like a hawk.

6. LYNN WESTMORELAND (R-GA)

No legal background. As Republican Leader in the Georgia House, he led the fight against intense partisan gerrymandering during the redistricting process controlled by the Democratic majority in 2001. He was instrumental in the gerrymandering that took place in 2005 after Republicans won control of the Georgia legislature in the 2004 elections.

As a U.S. congressman, Westmoreland cosponsored a bill to place the Ten Commandments in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Westmoreland also sponsored a bill that the Ten Commandments could be displayed in courthouses in a historical setting. Finally, he described Obama as uppity and then had to crawfish his way out from under that one.

COMMENT: QUESTIONABLE CHOICE: like Roskam, he wreaks partisanship, which is the very thing we do not need. The Democrats will see him as a lightening rod. It will be up to Trey to keep him under control as well. Between Westmoreland and Roskam that could turn out to be a full-time job.

As expected, the democrats have moved past their initial position of non-participation on the Benghazi committee, based on the false premise that all the questions have been answered, to a conditional acceptance premised as fairness which is intended to give them veto power over the proceedings, in particular the subpoena power, which they are most afraid of. That condition is categorically unacceptable whereas other conditions they propose are negotiable. In essence, they have decided it is better for them politically to be inside the tent pissing in, just as I forecast. They harp about not wanting the process to be fair, but fair to whom? Martin Luther said it best: fairness depends on whose ox is being gored. The real point here is the concern over the politicalization of the process cuts both ways. Both sides must make a clear and unequivocal commitment to avoid politication, the process must be designed in such a way as to discourage it, and any participant or staffer who breaches that commitment, must be expelled from the process. This is, or should be, simply a fact finding exercise. And once the facts have been determined both sides are free to reach different conclusion as to their meaning. If the Obama Administration had been cooperative in the prior processes, and if they had been designed to elicit responsive answers to all the material questions, then we would not need to have a select committee after eighteen months, but since if did not, this process is sine qua non.

I believe Trey Gowdy is a truth teller, including the time he called Pelosi “mind numbingly stupid”. More on that below from pjmedia:
———————-
WASHINGTON — The lawmaker chosen to lead the House panel investigating the 2012 Benghazi tragedy is an unabashed supporter of the Tea Party movement who still considers himself more of a prosecutor than a professional politician.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) was tabbed to fill the chairmanship of the newly formed select committee to investigate the State Department’s handling of the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that led to the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Several House and Senate committees have been delving into the events surrounding the attack and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had exhibited reluctance about forming a special committee. He decided to proceed on May 2, asserting that the White House is so “intent on obstructing the truth about Benghazi that it is even willing to defy subpoenas issued by the standing committees of the people’s House.”

“Four of our fellow citizens were murdered, and a facility emblematic and representative of our country was attacked and burned on the anniversary of 9-11,” Gowdy said. “Our fellow citizens are full well capable of processing the truth about the attacks and aftermath, and most assuredly entitled to hear it.”

Twenty months after the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks, Gowdy said, unresolved questions remain about inadequate security, the U.S. response and the government’s interaction with the public after the attack.

“All of those lines of inquiry are legitimate and should be apolitical,” Gowdy said. “Facts are neither red nor blue.”

The House on Thursday voted 232-186 along party lines, Republicans forming the majority, to investigate all policies, decisions and activities that contributed to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Libya and affected the ability of the U.S. to prepare for the onslaught. The committee also is empowered to look into the Obama administration’s efforts to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators and gather information related to lessons learned from the attacks.

“This resolution equips the select committee with the scope and tools necessary for the seriousness of this investigation,” Gowdy said after the vote. “We are charged with a clear mission — uncover all the facts and provide answers to the American public. While people are free to draw different conclusions from the facts, there should be no debate over whether the American public is entitled to have all of the facts. As chairman, my goal is to conduct an inquiry that is rooted in fairness, is fact-driven and worthy of the trust of the American public, regardless of one’s political affiliation.”

The choice of Gowdy to lead the special committee is interesting from several perspectives. The lawmaker and Boehner, who plucked Gowdy from the ranks of the 233 GOP members of Congress to lead it, are not considered close. Gowdy told Politico in May 2012: “I don’t know the speaker well.”

While Boehner is viewed as representing the Republican Party establishment, Gowdy has a reputation as a conservative bomb-thrower, earned as a result of his frequent vituperative questioning of Obama administration officials at committee hearings. Gowdy is a darling of the Tea Party, a movement that scorns the speaker as being too willing to compromise.

Gowdy has not always, in fact, followed Boehner’s lead. He was among those who lined up to oppose Boehner’s proposal to end the debt limit crisis in 2011 and wound up voting against the final agreement. He was a frequent attendee at a dinner group that featured Republicans with Tea Party ties, fellow lawmakers like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.), where they discussed ways to force the GOP leadership to be more forceful in pushing the party’s agenda.

But in appointing Gowdy, Boehner characterized him as being as “dogged, focused and serious-minded as they come.”

“His background as a federal prosecutor and his zeal for the truth make him the ideal person to lead this panel,” Boehner said. “I know he shares my commitment to get to the bottom of this tragedy and will not tolerate any stonewalling from the Obama administration.”

Gowdy carries “the confidence of this (Republican) conference,” Boehner said, adding that the lawmaker’s “professionalism and grit will earn him the respect of the American people.”

But choosing Gowdy opens Boehner and the select committee to charges that they are staging something less than the “apolitical” investigation Gowdy promised since he already has drawn conclusions and publicly stated his views about the administration’s actions related to Benghazi.

On May 5, during a House Oversight & Government Reform Committee hearing, Gowdy cited a State Department email regarding Benghazi, stating “this is Sept. 12, Mr. Chairman, this is well before the administration began misleading the American people.”

Furthermore, citing an email from Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, to Susan Rice, the former U.N. ambassador and current national security advisor, seeking to shape the way she addressed the Benghazi situation, Gowdy said: “The goal was to do everything we can to deflect attention away from this feckless foreign policy we have in the Middle East that isn’t working.”

On May 2, before the Boehner appointment, Gowdy told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News that he holds evidence of “a systematic, intentional decision to withhold certain documents from Congress” regarding Benghazi and what he views as an ongoing White House cover-up.

Such statements have not escaped the attention of the House Democratic leadership, which is weighing the possibility of simply boycotting the special panel by refusing to appoint members of the minority.

Here’s some more proof that Benghazi is all about Hillary Clinton, by a certain Donald R. May in an organ called “Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Mr. Conservative Blog”:

Has Hillary Clinton Been Derelict in Her Duties?

Has Hillary Clinton been derelict in her duties as Secretary of State?

It has come to our attention that for two years Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused to designate the openly Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram as a terrorist organization. Boko Haram kidnapped 276 teenage schoolgirls in Nigeria last month and plans to sell these girls to the highest bidders. Recently 300 more Nigerians were killed by Boko Haram in a small town near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon. Over the past two years, Boko Haram has killed thousands of Christians and Muslims.

It remains fresh in our minds that Hillary Clinton failed to provide adequate military protection for the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi had been cut by the State Department (run by Hillary Clinton) even though Ambassador Stevens strongly objected. Up to the day of his assassination, Ambassador Stevens issued additional requests for more security at the Consulate.

Hillary Clinton should have realized that terrorists are dangerous and will do much evil if not restrained and stopped. It really does make a difference.

Note, among other things, the use of the present perfect tense in the title and first sentence, indicating that HRC is still Secretary of State now, plus the reference to Boko Haram which has come only recently to public attention, off HRC’s watch.

This is further evidence that conservatives bunched under the Republican umbrella are looking to pin as much blame as possible on HRC for all the world’s ills, and twist the facts in the process: “… Ambassador Stevens strongly objected.” No, but really?

And then there’s the reference to “What difference, at this point, does it make?” in saying “it really does make a difference.”

The Republicans are obsessed with bringing down HRC. They want to stack up as much tripe on her as they can to bring down her popularity.

If the select committee just asks questions and lets the public decide, as Gowdy says he will do, we can foresee the “public” crucifixion of HRC. That’s all they want. They don’t care about Obama, Panetta, his generals, other embassy staff, the CIA, or the Libyan security detail that ran away.

Here’s a pretty clear-eyed view of the country’s present status and future, though “ageist” about HRC 2016.

The foregone conclusion of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run appears to me to be a huge waste of airtime and newsprint. Republicans are spending millions investigating her activities from her mother’s womb until present day. Why do they always concentrate on tearing down their opponents, instead of trying to come up with a workable plan for our country? Do they not know we can see what they are doing? They need to realize communications have gone beyond the telegraph and pony express days.

Anyway, Hillary won’t be any younger in 2016, and that is her biggest obstacle. She is just slightly younger than me, so I know she is past her prime for the top job. She and Bill have served their country well and will continue to do so as private citizens. The day will come for our nation’s first woman president, but for Hillary, that day went past in 2008.

My prediction for 2016 is that the middle class will be feeling a bit cocky, vote Republican and enter another period of regret. I believe the statistical odds back my prediction, but I’m hoping a good Democratic statistic-breaker shows up. Actually, it would be nice to have at least two good candidates for a change. Nah, that’s just crazy talk.

From “The XX Factor: What women really think,” we get an excellent analysis, this time from a sympathetic source, of how Republicans are trying to relate everything negative about Benghazi on HRC, and adding twisted interpretations of post-HRC events into the mix:

For most people watching the unfolding story of the Nigerian girls kidnapped by the Islamist cult Boko Haram, the dominant feelings are despair and helplessness and fear that these girls will never be returned to their families. For much of right-wing media, however, it seems to have sparked a different emotion: Hillary hate. Fox News and other outlets have been very busy trying to find a way to exploit this story to derail Hillary Clinton’s presumed 2016 run for president, because that’s what they do.

In order to pin this one on Clinton, conservative pundits argue that she failed by not having the State Department designate Boko Harem as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Brooke Goldstein, speaking to Megyn Kelly of Fox News, argued that failing to give Boko Harem this label “sends a green light, go ahead, continue with your terrorist activities, you can do it with impunity. We’re going to turn a blind eye.” Steve Doocy and Elisabeth Hasselbeck of Fox practically blamed Clinton for the kidnapping. By not labeling Boko Haram a foreign terrorist organization, Hasselbeck argued, the State Department “would have forbidden any sort of authority to increase securities to them, increase assistance to Nigerian security forces in that area and perhaps could have saved these girls earlier.” Doocy claimed that the reason that we can’t “go after them” is all because Clinton didn’t make the designation.
This narrative has rippled through right-wing media, with Andrew McCarthy of National Review accusing Clinton of protecting Boko Haram because she is a devotee of “appeasing Islamists” and the Daily Caller saying this puts Clinton’s support for women and girls in the “allegedly” category, as if she had some prior knowledge of Boko Haram’s intention to kidnap girls.

What’s the real story? Is it true that Hillary Clinton, in the thrall of Islamist bullies, refused to designate an obvious terrorist organization for what it was, thereby stopping the U.S. from stomping them out of existence? No. Clinton’s State Department designated multiple leaders of Boko Haram as global terrorists. And while the State Department now considers Boko Haram a foreign terrorist group—neatly disproving Doocy’s theory that we’re still hamstrung from treating them that way—in 2011 things looked a little different. As the New York Times reports, the group is primarily a local one and sits in the hazy middle ground between “religious cult” and “terrorist organization,” though it’s obviously drifting more toward the latter. It seems the State Department in 2011 was concerned about not pushing the group further into the “terrorist organization” direction. As ThinkProgress notes, in 2012, a group of 20 scholars in African studies implored caution in putting Boko Haram on the list, fearing it would “internationalize Boko Haram, legitimize abuses by Nigeria’s security services, limit the State Department’s latitude in shaping a long term strategy, and undermine the U.S. Government’s ability to receive effective independent analysis from the region.”

While this is obviously a complex subject, it’s a massive stretch to say that Clinton was tip-toeing around “Islamists” or that the foreign terrorist organization designation would have prevented this kidnapping. The only real reason to keep trying to hang this around Clinton’s neck is cynical partisanship, at the expense of taking the actual situation in Nigeria seriously for what it really is.

Lest there be any doubt about that, Laura Ingraham of Fox News even tried to squeeze the word Benghazi into her coverage, to maximize the baseless Clinton hysterics. “I think part of the problem here is that we have a dead American ambassador. We have no one in custody. Not to bring it back to Benghazi,” she said, proceeding to insinuate that the girls were kidnapped because “Benghazi” made the U.S. look weak.

This all points to the fact, which I consider undeniable, that the Republicans, aka the “vast right-wing conspiracy” of Hillary hate, will overstep any starry-eyed hope for fairness on the part of Gowdy’s investigators and turn every little factoid and testimonial spin they can into a weapon against Hillary Clinton.

Again, I contend that no important questions will be asked unless they can be turned against Hillary Clinton, just as no other scandals under this administration has been investigated because they could not be turned against HRC.

The Rhodes memo got into Karl Rove’s hands and he saw that Jake Sullivan was among the addressees. Thus HRC’s top policy advisor, ergo HRC, was aware of the memo, and that’s all it took for the Republican establishment to call for a select committee.

The committee will proceed in open-door sessions and the Republican establishment will make whatever use it wants of the facts that are brought out. And what is the “use it wants?” Why, you can be sure all they want is the nation’s welfare!

It’s been reported that an American contractor has placed some mercenary units in eastern Ukraine and they’re engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Russian troops. Sounds like business contracted out by CIA-DIA covert operations.

Apparently, “Western Journalism” is a Tea Party site situated somewhere out west. Here’s a transcript from a guy in a cowboy hat who calls himself “Wild Bill for America”

Well, some of the Republicans are pondering the best ways to defeat Hillary Clinton if she’s the Democrat presidential candidate. Other Republicans like John Boehner are probably already writing speeches about how they can congratulate her and how they can best grovel at the feet of president Hillary.

I was asked at a Tea Party rally a while back what I thought the Republican plan is for the next presidential election, and I thought, “Man, that’s an easy question – The DC Republicans are looking for the most milquetoast, wimpy androgynous politician who has never taken a stand on anything. That is the Republican plan!”

They are too terrified of the media to put up a tough candidate. They apparently think that if they can be just friendly enough with the invaders from Mexico and other criminals, potheads, communists and friends of Lucifer, the Left will suddenly start voting Republican!

If they can attack honest, hard-working God-and-country patriotic Americans enough, the left-wing media will suddenly start to love them. If there’s a stupider way to run a political party, it hasn’t been invented yet.

Now, since we know the Washington DC Republicans are going to screw up the election, perhaps we should consider another tactic to stop Hillary:

What if one of our members posed as a Democrat candidate – one that would pretend to be ultra-liberal, to steal votes away from queen Hillary?

Now, we know that Hillary is gonna do what liberals always do: Try to run as a Conservative. While Hillary is waving a bible and gushing about how much she loves hunting, we would have the liberal voters salivating at the candidate promising to crush home school families and take their kids away from them, to have Tea Party meetings raided by SWAT teams and the Tea Partiers charged with “crimes against the State.”

Liberals would be dancing in the streets if the candidate promised to release all the Islamists from Guantanamo and to use Gitmo as a prison for Tea Party members.

Liberal voters would swoon over a candidate who promised to set up a caste system in America with white male Christians at the bottom, relegated to the lowest menial tasks and forced to live in hovels as punishment for being white male Christians.

[a heckler starts to make faces behind the speaker]

The loony Left would go nuts over a candidate who promises an Executive Order mandating a mosque and a gay bathhouse in every city.

Liberal college professors would be giddy at the candidate who promised to disarm the US military and give all of our military weapons to the Palestinians so they would no longer have to use their children as human bombs.

The low-morals left could not resist a candidate that they thought would turn the USA into one giant defenseless gay bathhouse. Liberal voters would be on that like maggots on a rotting corpse.

Only one more campaign promise would be needed to lock in the Democrat nomination, and that would be to start taxing bible-believing churches and use that money to build coliseums where Christians would once again meet the lions. Don’t believe the liberal left would feed Christians to the lions? Ha – just read their comments on this video. [no comments are viewed]

Of course, the video is meant to be tongue in cheek. But personally, I can’t get a laugh out of it and the speaker seems to take himself seriously. All in all, it’s just silly and a bad reflection on the Tea Party, showing deep ignorance not only of HRC but of the left, how stupid it is, and what it wants.

No wonder the Republican establishment is having a hard time digesting the Tea Party.

In the article following the video, Sam Stein recalls that the question Gowdy claims to want answered (why security was scaled down) was already answered by HRC in the questioning before the foreign affairs committee.

In the video, Gowdy claims the Democrats show selective partisanship in their investigations of one scandal over another, but doesn’t explain why Republicans are pursuing Benghazi in the rear view mirror without investigating the NSA scandal, Fast and Furious and so much more, and to boot, without trying to prevent a future recurrence of Benghazi.

A new CNN poll finds that just 12% of Americans consider the Obamacare program a “success.”
President Barack Obama has pressed fellow Democrats to laud and run on his signature legislative achievement. However, other polls confirm that the law, which has been in effect for over four years now, remains deeply unpopular. The latest Pew/USA Today poll finds just 41% of Americans now support Obamacare. A record 55% disapprove of the law.
The CNN poll found less support for repealing Obamacare; 49% want Congress to make changes to the law, and 12% said to keep Obamacare as is. Of those surveyed, 38% backed a full repeal.
Political analysts say the Obamacare debacle will play a major role in the Nov. 4 midterm elections. Indeed, Democrats are now in a weaker position than they were this time before the historic 2010 Republican victory that resulted in the largest defeat for a first-term president since 1922.
Voters head to the polls in 177 days.

One of the Bengazi select committee members whom I feel is an outstanding choice. Looks like a serious guy. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I suspect they are burning Ben Rhoades in effigy. If not, they should be. Persona non grata, throughout Obamaland.

Oh what tangled webs we weave . . . Between the Rhoades memo and the tripping up of dude Tommy Vietor, reasonable minds will conclude that they were lied to by the administration on the eve of the presidential election to protect a false narrative that the blazing saddles Obama had the bad guys on the run. Carney meanwhile behaves like a parrot, parotting his talking points which have been superceded and invalidated by new disclosure. Meanwhile the White House press corps other than Johnathan Karl, sits there and believes everything he says, judging by their rapt attention and failure to challenge the lies. They are not reporters . . they are fucking stenographers. This is a little like their truthful statements about Obamacare which are akin to perjury, i.e. if you like your plan you can keep it, ditto your doctor and Obamacare will lower premiums for families by $2500. Well, here is Sharyl sorting it all out. Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive:
—————

Did ex-White House Official Contradict ex-CIA Official’s Sworn Testimony on Benghazi?

by Sharyl Attkisson
on May 3, 2014
in Benghazi
Leave a comment

Did the former spokesman for President Obama’s National Security Staff (NSS) contradict accounts of other Obama officials, including sworn testimony before Congress, regarding the administration’s talking points on the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks?

The question arose Thursday when Fox News anchor Brett Baier questioned former NSS spokesman Tommy Vietor. During the interview, Vietor acknowledged making at least one substantive change to the talking points.

​Baier asked Vietor, “According to the e-mails and the time line the C.I.A. circulates new talking points after they’ve removed the mention of al-Qaeda, and then at 6:21 the White House, you, add a line about the administration warning of September 10th of social media reports calling for demonstrations. True?”

Uh, I believe so,” answered Vietor.

The documentation and Vietor’s admission that he helped steer the talking points toward the incorrect demonstration narrative are at odds with other Obama officials, including White House spokesman Jay Carney who insisted that White House officials only made a single edit, changing the word “consulate” to “diplomatic post.”

“[T]he only edit made by the White House or the State Department to those talking points generated by the C.I.A. was a change from — referring to the facility that was attacked in Benghazi, from “consulate,” because
it was not a consulate, to “diplomatic post”…But the point being, it was a matter of non-substantive/factual correction,” said Carney at a White House press briefing on May 10, 2013. Later, Carney reiterated, “The White House made one minor change to the talking points drafted by the C.I.A.”

Last month, former C.I.A. Deputy Director Mike Morell repeated the claim that the White House had no involvement in any substantive changes.

“To be very clear,” Morell told members of the House Intelligence Committee on April 2, 2014, “the White House did not make any substantive changes to the talking points.”

Morell’s written testimony submitted to the committee also specifically denied that Vietor’s agency, the NSS, which is chaired by the President, made the change that Vietor suggests he made.

Morell’s written testimony reads, “No one at the NSS suggested or requested a single substantive change. That is a simple fact, and calling it a myth doesn’t change the reality. For example, one change suggested by the NSS was to change the reference in the talking points to the U.S. Consulate to a more precise term for the facility because it was not technically a consulate. Another requested change was a simple reordering of a couple of sentences for the sake of clarity. Editorial? Yes. Substantive? No.”

In Thursday’s interview with Baier, Vietor left open the possibility that he made other changes to the talking points. But, when pressed, he seemed to revise his answer and point back to C.I.A. Deputy Director Morell’s testimony.

“Did you also change ‘attacks’ to ‘demonstrations’ in the talking points?” asked Baier in Thursday’s interview.

“Uh Maybe. I don’t really remember,” answered Vietor. “You don’t remember?” ​“Dude, this was like two years ago.” Baier continued, “The key part is ‘attacks’ to ‘demonstrations…’ “Yeah,” said Vietor.

“No, Michael Morell testified to what he changed and what was changed in those, in those emails, the whole process of that, Michael Morell testified that he took them back, didn’t like them and changed them,” Vietor said.

A spokesman for Morell provided no immediate comment for this report. An email to Vietor went unanswered.

The Obama administration has firmly denied there was a political attempt to hide the fact that Benghazi was a terrorist attack eight weeks before the Presidential election. Obama officials say that when they blamed a spontaneously-inspired demonstration, they were relying on the best intelligence at the time and updated their account as more information became available.

“This is an effort to accuse the administration of hiding something that we did not hide,” Carney told reporters on May 10, 2013.

Nothing Clever about Winning with Lies and Special Interest Riches
Friday, May 2nd, 2014 by Daniel Horowitz and is filed under Blog, Elections

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Over the past few weeks, political news outlets have been filled with articles beaming about the masterful strategy of the GOP establishment in crushing grassroots challenges. They smugly celebrate the wily tactics of Senator Mitch McConnell, the Chamber of Commerce, and Crossroads in counterattacking the Tea Party. But when you think past the initial headline, you will find that there is nothing special, clever, or innovative about their strategy. It is quite simple.

Members of the political class, which is comprised of the leaders in both parties, support unconstitutional policies, corporate welfare, amnesty for illegals, consistent debt ceiling increases, federal control of local functions, and anything else demanded by the dominant moneyed interests. In return, they receive unlimited campaign support in the form of direct contributions and independent expenditures that are carefully coordinated with their candidates through McConnell’s network of the Chamber, NRSC, and Karl Rove – as outlined by National Journal.

In comes a grassroots candidate from the country class. Needless to say, unless they are a billionaire, they struggle to collect small donations from patriotic citizens in order to develop a modicum of legitimacy and grow their name ID with the electorate. In fact, it is precisely because these candidates support principle over power that they have a difficult time raising money – at least anywhere near the scale of the political class. There is a clear inverse relationship between principled stances on the issues and raising money.

The campaign finance “inequality” has been further exacerbated by McCain-Soros campaign finance laws that place upstart candidates at a disadvantage. They lack a large network of donors, but might know of a handful of patriots who are willing to fully support the candidate. However, they are hamstrung by caps on individual contributions.

Challenging the political class in both open seats (or Democrat seats) and incumbent seats would be arduous enough if the only inherent problem was the money gap. But there are two more challenges: defining of the candidate and ideological lies.

Defining the Candidates

In most races with grassroots challengers, the incumbent enjoys ubiquitous name ID and has been fully defined in the eyes of the voters for years. As is often the case, the incumbent might have mediocre approval numbers, but given that he is a known quantity, there is no fear that he is a total lunatic.

Contrast that to most of the challengers who are starting out with zero name ID and are completely undefined in the minds of voters. Again, most of these challengers lack the funds to ever pose a threat to the incumbent, but the minute they gain traction, the political class has unlimited funds to define the challenger with their professional hit man opposition attacks. Let’s be clear, some grassroots candidates are better than others, but there is no human being with an impressive background who does not have something in their lives that can be exaggerated or distorted and put into a massive TV buy.

Remember, the first time most voters are hearing about our candidates is through the prism of the oppo hits, and you know what they say about a first impression. That is how they can destroy someone out of the gate — with a dehumanization campaign. Even if they didn’t have the funding advantage it would still be difficult because of the gap in definition. The establishment can completely destroy upstart insurgent candidates because there is no pre-existing definition in the minds of voters. We cannot destroy their candidates, rather merely hope to slowly knock them down a few points. Moreover, we focus on issues; they focus on oppo hits. Guess which one resonates more with voters?

Lies, Lies, Lies

As the National Journal article noted, McConnell and his lieutenants have learned how to pick the lock. Unlike moderate incumbents of the past like Dick Lugar, who, more or less, ran on their records, these members take the McCain/Hatch route. In other words, they lie their way through the primary.

Instead of running on support of bailouts, amnesty, corporate welfare, debt ceiling increases, expansion of the federal government, jettisoning social issues, and tweaking Obamacare (things they support privately or even vote for) they use their superior firepower to portray themselves as rocked-rib conservatives and paint their opponents as liberals. Remember how Mike Simpson ran ads saying he voted to REPEAL the Wall Street bailout and that his opponent was a liberal trial lawyer? Their cowardly allies do the same thing. Just look at Jason Hart’s article about OH-14 to understand how all these factors play together.

Ponder this thought for a moment: political class candidates receive millions of dollars from big government interests precisely because of their support for liberal causes. Then they turn around and use that money to lie to the voters and sell themselves as the antithesis of their funding sources and their opponents as the epitome of their special interests.

Headed into the next few weeks, this strategy might pay off. We pray to God that it doesn’t.

But one thing is clear: there is no skill, merit, or virtue in what they are doing. It is nothing but old-fashioned corruption and lies.

Cross-posted from RedState

One Response to “Nothing Clever about Winning with Lies and Special Interest Riches”
1.Barbara Peacock Says:
May 2nd, 2014 at 8:42 pm
We The People have spoken and we said, “Your incompetence, wasteful, over budget spending, behind closed doors deals that ONLY HELP YOU, lies, lies, lies are no longer acceptable. You must go! Senators and Congresspeople have over stayed and damaged our country and us. SOME MAJOR CHANGES MUST BE MADE! WE do not have access to major corporate, billionaires/millionaires like the stayed too long incumbents. WE are using our children’s inheritance, retirement funds to support our strong, intelligent, conservative, constitution and America loving candidates. I PROMISE LIBERTY WILL BE OURS! JOIN US OR PERISH!

In the video, Gowdy claims the Democrats show selective partisanship in their investigations of one scandal over another, but doesn’t explain why Republicans are pursuing Benghazi in the rear view mirror without investigating the NSA scandal, Fast and Furious and so much more, and to boot, without trying to prevent a future recurrence of Benghazi.

just 41% of Americans now support Obamacare. A record 55% disapprove of the law.

The CNN poll found less support for repealing Obamacare; 49% want Congress to make changes to the law, and 12% said to keep Obamacare as is. Of those surveyed, 38% backed a full repeal.

This is an illustration of what Hillary has been saying, and also an illustration of whacko interpretations of the polls. Consider:

49% + 12% = 61% either want the law as it is or want to make changes, and thus support the law to some extent. This is what HRC calls a rising majority of public opinion.

This figure also complements the 38% who want a repeal: 61% + 38% = 99%, leaving only 1% unaccounted for.

This totally upends the initial statement that “a record 55% disapprove of the law.”

The sticking point is the people “who want to make changes.” They disapprove of parts of the law, an are therefore counted in the 55% who disapprove.

But the fact is that Hillary has seen through the dust storm: The public does not want to repeal the law and lose it benefits. There is a “rising majority” that want to keep the law and make changes.

The Republicans think they have it made this fall by counting on public discontent over the Affordable Care Act. They plan not to offer any alternatives, including repeal, but just to ride the wave of public opinion.

The Republicans have been on the wrong side of public more than once in the past. It’s quite possible they’re being lulled into sweet dreams of easy victory this fall by letting the public vent its anger over Obamacare and vote them into office. The Democrats have an opportunity here. What they need is leadership on this (and other) issues, and I have a hunch that it’s the Clintons who are going to provide it.

This just in from WGN Chicago at noon. My modification of their suggested tweet.
Pressure from flood waters cause possible explosion in DeepTunnel pipe http://go.wgntv.com/1lnveLQ via @WGNNews
REMINDS OF OBAMACARE. #FixFailFix etc.

I’ve placed this comment which is OT IOT assuage my cynical mind. Gist of article:
…Residents in Calumet City say they heard a loud noise, like an airplane, and when they looked out their apartment window, they saw an explosion last night that sent water, sand and rocks shooting at least fifteen feet into the air…They claim a similar blast happened two years ago [& modifications were made] but [the first one] was not nearly as severe as the explosion last night. Pictures from Skycam 9 show a large crater, at least ten feet deep in the space….